I Became a Tentacle Monster Blooming in the Academy Garden 48

## Chapter 48 – Plans Gone Awry

“Is this not it?”

“This is it, though? This is the final gate.”

“It doesn’t seem like it… There’s nothing here…?”

“That can’t be, right? Or maybe it’s hidden somewhere here?
Instead of complaining, why don’t you try looking for it?”

“You said everything would be here when we arrived!!
Are you sure we didn’t come to the wrong place?”

“Ah… Anne…!! Let’s look around first…!!”

“Then let’s finish searching first.
We can decide after that.”

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I was startled when I saw Arachnella looking down at me.

The fact that she was covered in blood was something I knew from the start, but the being held in her hand was too familiar for some reason.

“My snack? I won’t give it to you, you know?”

Perhaps sensing that my gaze was fixed on the girl in her hands, Arachnella, like a little girl who didn’t want her snack taken away, turned her waist and quickly hid the girl behind her back.

The girl, supported by Arachnella’s hands under her armpits, let out intermittent, breathy moans, her eyes blurred with tears as she stared blankly into the air.

‘Give her back!! Give her back!! What are you doing right now!!’

“Are you crazy…?
If you want to eat, why don’t you catch your own?”

Perhaps trying to inflict as much pain as possible before death, a significant portion of her body had already been lightly bitten, and she seemed to be bleeding to a dangerous extent.

Saying it was “lightly bitten” was an understatement; there was hardly any part of her that didn’t have exposed red flesh, and the sweet scent of blood wafted from the teeth marks on her neck, as if she had been about to take a large bite at the end. It was only then that I belatedly realized the sense of unease I felt.

‘The emergency escape artifact didn’t work?
That’s not it!! You can’t kill her!!’

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Why are you telling me to kill or not kill such trash?”

‘That’s… more importantly, where’s the other girl who was with her?’

“I don’t know about that? I like this bold one more than a coward, you see.”

Frankly, this was something Arachnella should handle on her own; there was no reason for me to save Carla’s roommate and send her back.

If there was a reason here, would it be because I had grown fond of Carla?

Having seen glimpses of the relationship between this roommate girl and Carla, who spent joyful and happy times together as close friends, through the spider, I had a feeling of what Carla’s reaction would be if this girl died as she was. Perhaps it was a judgment that came from that thought.

‘This isn’t the time to worry about a girl like that…!!
You need to move on to the next stage of the plan…!!
You haven’t forgotten our plan, have you?’

“Hmm… That’s true.”

Arachnella’s hand lost strength, and the girl’s body eventually fell to the ground.

If there was any consolation, it was that she didn’t fall headfirst.

However, watching the girl squirm and shiver as if cold due to a lack of blood, I couldn’t help but feel reluctant to leave her as she was, so I tried asking Arachnella for a favor.

‘Stop the bleeding for her. She’ll die like this.’

“You’ve been saying incomprehensible things since earlier?
Whether such things live or die…
Well, it’s a bother, but I can’t refuse a request.”

And at that moment, I was able to witness her spinning silk for the first time.

‘Good heavens…’

Surprisingly, instead of spinning silk from the spider’s rear end as commonly thought, she was spewing something thin from her nipples.

In a way, I wondered if that was what it felt like to express breast milk, but I eventually gave up on that thought after having all sorts of thoughts.

Arachnella picked up the girl’s body from the floor and used her two pairs of front legs to wrap the thin silk spewing from her nipples around and around. When she had wrapped a certain amount of thread, she stopped wrapping and placed the girl back on the floor.

“Done? But even if you leave her like this, blood will eventually leak out.
It’s just a slight, temporary extension of her life, you know?”

As she said nonchalantly, red bloodstains were already beginning to stain the pure white spider silk.

However, it was equally impossible to do anything more than this.

Our, our purpose was not to save this girl.

I had shown mercy by keeping her alive with the bare minimum, and even extended her life a little, so from now on, it would be up to this girl’s will to endure until she was rescued.

‘Then let’s move.
It’s the final stage now.
If we mess up, the opportunity will fly away.
Let’s be careful.’

“Ohoho!! Then I’ll go ahead?”

Only after Arachnella’s back disappeared into the maze in an instant did I finally let out a small sigh, and I tilted my head to look down at the girl lying on the ground, breathing shallowly as if she could stop at any moment.

But I, too, am someone with things to do, no, a tentacle.

I had shown mercy in that she was Carla’s roommate and went out of my way to save her life, so my role was over.

From now on, she had to somehow deal with this situation on her own…

‘I… I really did everything I could…
It’s time to go… If I stay here, someone might find out…’

“Sca.. red… So.. meone…
Sa.. ve me… Sis…”

Watching the girl, covered in blood as much as Arachnella, uttering a few words in a pathetic, trembling voice, I couldn’t help but blame my feet, which seemed nailed to the spot.

And at that moment, wouldn’t you know it, a familiar voice flowed in.

It was Carla’s voice.

“Yoo… Yui…!!”

Carla, carrying a bunch of things, rushed over with a desperate expression, shouting.

“Ge.. t away…!!”

However, when Carla noticed me next to her, she waved her hands at me as if struggling, so I had no choice but to step back.

It was a situation that was easy to misunderstand in many ways, but I, caught red-handed at the scene, could only watch Carla burst into tears as she looked at Yui, wrapped in spider silk.

“I’m sorry… sob… I’m sorry for running away alone…
Why… why hasn’t the artifact escaped yet…?
Yui…!! Wake up…!! Yui…”

However, I had no choice but to stop Carla from trying to tear off the spider silk, which, although stained with blood, was at least helping to stop the bleeding.

But the fact that this didn’t look like I was stopping her from a human perspective was true, so Carla, having braced herself, took out a small hammer from the side of her bag and pointed it at me.

Still, a Kernel Worm is a bit bigger than an average snake, so it was quite threatening in appearance, if you only looked at the outside.

Besides, it would be stranger if it wasn’t threatening, with small teeth like a circular saw blade on its snout.

“D… don’t… come closer…!!”

The fear that made her arm tremble, Carla’s heart, seemed to be conveyed through the trembling of her hammer-wielding hand.

“Yui is… Yui… I’ll protect her…!!
I’m… I’m really going to fight…!!
Yui… just hold on a little…? Is anyone there…!!
She’s hurt… she can’t escape!! Someone, please!!”

In the end, having been recognized as a dangerous element, it seemed there was no way for me to help her any further.

‘I guess there’s no choice…’

But in the end, I couldn’t turn away because I couldn’t bear to see Carla sobbing and shaking Yui, so I had no choice but to step into another dangerous gamble that I couldn’t undo.

“Hiiiik…!!”

Another Kernel Worm burst out of the ground from right below me, creating a hole and jumping out, and Carla turned her sharpened nerves towards it, turning the hammer she was holding in that direction.

And Carla’s gaze, which had been holding the hammer tightly with both hands, soon focused on something attached to the Kernel Worm’s tail, and Carla’s eyes, looking at it, became confused.

“Y… you…”

A bizarre creature made of black flesh, approaching her slowly on four pairs of legs.

When that creature, with a visual that was all too familiar to Carla, tilted its body slightly and looked up at her, Carla also unconsciously loosened her grip on the hand holding the hammer.

“Spider… -kun…?”

Watching the spider move as if nodding, tilting its body, Carla’s expression was filled with astonishment.

Of course, as for the individual, the spider was still trapped in Carla’s desk drawer, but, well.

Anyway, time was of the essence now.

After roughly answering, the spider approached the girl named Yui, whom Carla had been hiding behind her back, and began to tap the floor around her with its front legs.

“What… are you trying to do…?”

Carla, with a face full of questions, seemed to think that she couldn’t understand the current situation at all.

But without even having time to think about her questions, Carla screamed in surprise when she saw Yui’s body gently sinking into the ground along with the ground.

“Kyaaa!! Yui!!”

Perhaps she would have rushed in immediately if I hadn’t immediately turned around and shown Carla my front legs crossed in an X.

But fortunately, Carla was holding back her anxiety and waiting, and about a dozen Kernel Worms were wriggling under Yui, supporting her.

“Spider-kun… are you… helping…?”

Even so, Carla’s eyes were wavering as she watched the Kernel Worms digging tunnels with their snouts and the spider silk cocoon of Yui, carried on their backs, disappearing into the tunnel.

Countless worries were floating around in my head as I sat on Carla’s shoulder, pointing the opposite direction from the tunnel where Yui had disappeared with the tip of my front leg and nodding.

‘This plan is going to go a bit awry…’