Chapter 8: Hunted

Hiro looked up to his level-up bonus. Unlike humans, monsters got new perks every time they leveled up.

[You have leveled up to level 3]

[Choose an upgrade:

Poison Injection

Oxygen Injection

Nutrient Storage]

Hiro was thankful Nutrient Storage came back as a level-up upgrade. Now that he had become a tentacle, there might come a time when he needed to fight openly. He pondered whether he should take Poison Injection.

However, Nutrient Storage came first. Even with Nutrient Efficiency, the amount of nutrients he took from Cecile, Nana, and Rebecca had increased. When he was a worm, he needed 40 nutrients from Cecile every day. However, now he needed 30 nutrients from each of them, totaling 90. With Nutrient Storage, he wished to take nutrients from random trees when they were adventuring and store them for himself. When he took Nutrient Storage, there were numbers beside the storage, similar to Cell Storage.

About his Cell Storage: it turned out the storage was shared among his clones. He figured it out when he was binding Nana and Rebecca. The Cell Storage went down faster than when he was binding Cecile alone.

[level up achieved!

STR: 14 -> 17

DEX: 17 -> 18

MAG: 0]

[You have leveled up to level 4]

[Choose an upgrade:

Metamorphic Tentacle

Magic Stat Up

Mana Sensing]

Hiro was elated. Magic was finally on the menu! He imagined himself using magic. However, his excitement cooled down a bit. To use magic, he needed to have a Magic stat, Mana Sensing, and Mana Manipulation. So, if he was lucky, he needed to waste two levels to level up. Then, there was Metamorphic Tentacle.

[Metamorphic Tentacle:

Able to change tentacle properties to other materials that have been analyzed or taken into the body. With Cell Manipulation, the user can also change the basic shape of the tubular body into different shapes.

Current available properties: Wood, bone, muscle tissue]

Hiro prayed that he would get a magic-related skill later, but for now, he had to choose Metamorphic Tentacle. He followed his instinct. Metamorphic Tentacle would enable him to become a skinsuit tentacle for his host. Not only would this increase their defense, but it would also let him grope and feel all of their body. It was no surprise that Hiro thought with his dick, not his head. Despite his lecherous attitude, Hiro's choice was correct. Most other tentacles have Metamorphic Tentacle as their skill because they can change their weak fleshy tentacles into a hard exoskeleton or even mimic wood in a forest.

[level up achieved!

STR: 17 -> 19

DEX: 18 -> 20

MAG: 0]

Surprisingly, that was all the leveling up he had. He wondered if he had to make his girls cum more or if it was getting harder to level up because he had evolved. He chose to let it slide; levels were not his main priority right now. It was his hosts. He rested in the embrace of their wombs as his hosts slept, feeling satisfied.

Afternoon came, and Cecile overslept again. The sun had already passed its peak a long time ago. Her body was sore all over. When she checked out, the innkeeper asked her if she was okay. She barely mustered up a smile. She then haggardly walked to Rebecca's inn while stretching her stiff body. Yesterday was amazing for her. She was played with and made to cum many times. She wondered if she could keep her sanity if things kept going on. There might come a day when she would lie down and beg the tentacle to fuck her.

She rendezvoused with Rebecca and Nana at the tavern below. All of them wore the same haggard face, and she wondered what had happened to her. They waved their hands weakly and greeted her when she came near, motioning for her to sit together.

"Cecile… I think whatever monster that attacked the bandits yesterday is inside us," Rebecca went straight to the point.

"I see. What should we do?"

"If we don't do something, we might end up like those bandits."

"But it doesn't seem like the tentacles are up to no good," Nana defended Hiro. After just one night, she had become captivated by Hiro's tentacle body.

"Nana… Don't tell me you're actually getting off from monsters? I knew you were a pervert, but I never thought it would go this far…"

"Eh? I mean… it feels good… Even you feel it too, right, Rebecca?" Nana felt guilty, but she couldn't lie to herself. With Alex gone, there was no one who would tend to her needs.

"Ugh… I don't know. But the monster must have used some kind of skill or magic," Rebecca frowned, but Cecile interrupted.

"Um… I think the monster helped us…" Cecile was about to mention her increase in stats but held herself back. She doubted herself. She was unsure whether the monster that inhabited her now was the same as the one that made her stats explosively increase when facing orcs. But the way it touched her reminded her of her first time. Even though she couldn't explain it, deep down, she knew it was the same creature that inhabited her. Her instincts were strong.

"Yeah. I admit the monster indirectly helped us by killing the bandits. But if we become its breeding ground, we will meet the same fate."

"Why did the monster do those things to us, I wonder?" Nana asked, blushing. "The way it groped me…"

"Besides, what can we do? I have tried, but I can't get it out. We can't exactly tell anyone else about this either. It's too embarrassing to have others investigate your privates. Moreover, the monsters don't seem to tease us every day," Cecile answered.

"If we pay the church, we could get a monster-repellent antidote. Then, we could douse it inside our bodies ourselves. Or we could get the more expensive purifying potion."

"That thing costs 5 gold. We can't…" Nana stopped herself.

"The bandit we took down yesterday was worth 10 gold. In total, we earned 20 gold: 10 from their heads and 10 from their loot." Rebecca explained. Hiro was sweating. He regretted messing with Rebecca; she would now expel him from her body.

"Are you Adventurer Cecile, Rebecca, and Nana?" Knights in red armor entered the tavern. This tavern was famous, so many knights came here. However, these knights were in uniform, meaning they were here on official business, not simply to drink or eat.

"Eh? Yes?" Cecile answered honestly. She was confused. Why would knights come for her?

"You are charged with murdering Alex, son of Count Balto. Please come with us."

"What? We didn't kill Alex! We already told the local knight order about the circumstances! Why would Balto's personal knights come for us? John! You should know better. I wouldn't do such a thing!" Rebecca shouted.

"Shut up! Come with us!" The man didn't argue and dragged the three girls away. Among them, only Rebecca showed resistance, but her weak stats made it futile. Hiro was confused about why the other girls weren't fighting back.

The reason was unknown to Hiro, but they didn't fight back because they were commoners and shouldn't fight nobles. Many knights were nobles. If they resisted, even when they were innocent, they would be seen as picking a fight against the law. So, they walked obediently and were put into the specialized jail together.

"We are going to die!" Cecile was having a panic attack. "They are going to kill us!"

"Rebecca?" Nana was calmer, but her worry was apparent to Hiro.

"Ugh… They shouldn't. I mean, why? Count Balto is definitely more influential than Count Evesys from my house. But even they shouldn't pull things like this." Rebecca was confused. "It was the bandits who killed Alex."

Unbeknownst to them, the knights intended to pin the blame for Alex's death on them. Alex was supposed to inherit a knight's order. He was supposed to be an adventurer merely to gain levels. However, Alex was a bit prideful, so he told his guard to have fun in the city, and they obliged. All of them were lazy and negligent.

However, Alex died. Without him, the knights might lose their heads under the second son, who was also corrupt and preferred to disband the entire order and rebuild it with his loyal henchmen. This led to some unjustified hatred for Hiro's girls. If they could pin the blame not just on the bandits but also on the girls, it could lessen their punishment.

The guards cursed the girls as they sat at a table nearby in Balto's personal villa. Nobody knew why such villas had jails beneath them. Their curses were quiet, more like scoffs, but loud enough to be heard. The beer beside the table showed how slovenly the guards were with their duty.

"Fucking slut. If not for you and your foolish adventure, we wouldn't be fired as knights."

"We haven't been fired yet, buddy. The letter of dismissal has yet to arrive. It takes time for the news to reach Count Balto in the capital. Lord Alex wasn't supposed to travel with these failures. Lord Alex chose them for their beauty and bodies. We all knew that." The lazy knights blamed the girls even though they elected not to do their duty as Alex's bodyguards themselves.

"Hahaha. We should taste them before killing them."

"Well, we certainly could sell them. It would make a good severance package."

A few hours later, the silence from the girls was deafening. The guards were snoring loudly, but while Cecile, Nana, and Rebecca were wide awake, they didn't talk or move a muscle. Hiro, on the other hand, chose this exact moment to move. He wanted to test his new skills.

"Eh? Again? At this time?" Cecile felt something move within her body. She heated up unconsciously. However, Hiro wanted to do something else. He extended his tentacle out of her and reached for the keyhole of her jail. Modifying his body to be smaller, he inserted himself into the keyhole.

"Does Tentacle like going inside a hole?" Nana muttered her dirty thoughts, but of course, Rebecca refuted.

"I think it's trying to pick the lock. Maybe it wants to get us out of here."

"Oh! Good!" Cecile was excited. She walked closer to the door, no longer feeling disgusted by the tentacle poking out from inside her.

The door... didn't open. Hiro was a neet. He didn't know how to pick a lock. He never studied it; he merely knew locks could be picked from movies. After thirty minutes of trying, Rebecca, feeling pity for him, muttered,

"I wonder if he understands human language. If you can extend your tentacle to the guards, you can steal the keys from there. Can you do it?" Rebecca advised him. Hiro was so embarrassed he felt his entire body flush red. Following her advice, he crawled toward the sleeping guard. He considered killing them like he did the bandits but refrained. He didn't want to traumatize the girls or alert the entire garrison if he failed.

Slowly, he crept up and entangled himself around the keys. To prevent them from jingling, he branched his tentacle to hold each key tight. Then he pulled back and gave the keys to Rebecca.

"Nice!" Rebecca made a victory pose. They soon opened the cell door and escaped. Tiptoeing toward the exit, the door opened with a creak. Their hearts almost leaped out of their mouths when the guard yawned and changed his sleeping posture, his legs lifting upward onto the table.

Soon, they faced another trouble. There were guards outside the villa. This time, Hiro extended his tentacle from all three of the girls and pointed toward the fence. Nana, the lewd girl, moaned and shivered when Hiro extended his tentacle out of her. The girls had question marks on their heads but still followed. It took some effort, but Hiro was able to lift them over the tall fence. Hiro had over 80 cell storage, after all. No matter how tall the wall was, it would barely reach four or five meters.

"We escaped!" Cecile almost cheered loudly. "Thank you, tentacle."

Hiro then retracted his tentacles back inside the girls without any fanfare. The girls' feelings were conflicted. They had been violated by this very tentacle, yet now it had saved them from certain peril.

"We escaped. But now what? Are we fugitives?" Nana asked. Her words doused cold water on the naive Cecile's excitement.

"The capture itself isn't warranted. But we are facing knights from a noble family. We should call for my family to defend us," Rebecca advised. "I hate having to beg them for help, but it can't be helped. We are facing nobles here."

"Shouldn't we go to the knight order first?" Nana suggested.

"That's actually a good idea. But Count Balto has an excellent relationship with Horaine's Lord. I don't know if they would help," Rebecca muttered.

"We don't have any supplies; we can't possibly travel to the royal capital in this state," Nana answered. The night wind sent chills down their spines. They were caught when they were eating in a restaurant inside the city, so they only wore simple dresses. The dress wasn't enough for the chilly night of autumn. Sensing his hosts' discomfort, Hiro used his newfound skill.

"Eh? What does it want now?"

Hiro crawled to every nook and cranny of their skin while making his body flat and rubber-like. As his muscle tissue wrapped around Nana, Cecile, and Rebecca, he formed a bone knife for Nana and Cecile but stopped. Making the knife used a lot of his cell storage. For just two knives, he almost used 20 cell storage. Wrapping the girls cost 30. A ping from his skill informed him that if he separated the knife from his main tentacle, he wouldn't get his cell storage back and the knife would become an item. If he did make the knife, he would only have 30 cell storage left.

Yes. Weapons and armor also have strength and dexterity stats in addition to durability. Strength will increase the user's strength stats while dexterity will improve the user's dexterity stats. Durability determines when the weapon will break. Some staves also have a magic stat in addition to the two mentioned before. Bone knives have extremely low durability and can shatter in one hit. However, if the knife is still attached to Hiro, its durability stat will be increased and it can be repaired since Hiro can regenerate his lost limbs with his cell storage.

Hiro couldn't wrap their entire bodies. His pink flesh would be too conspicuous against their fair skin. So, he stopped at their torsos and thighs, which were already covered by their dresses.

"Eeek! It is trying to eat us!" Rebecca almost screamed. But Cecile looked again.

"I think it is trying to protect us from the wind…"

"My hands are still cold," Rebecca, the snobby brat, complained.

"Let's return to our inn."

"No. If they know we escaped, they will definitely search our inn. We have to sleep on the street until morning when the knight order opens. This tentacle is surprisingly smart. I wonder…" Rebecca muttered. Hiro was apprehensive when she looked at him grudgingly. But she is his host now, he can't escape.

Like homeless people, they went to a nearby alley and lay down. The hard rock made them uncomfortable. Again, Hiro worked his magic. He enveloped the entire girl and made the surface of his skin wooden. So, from the outside, they merely looked like a wooden box. A peephole was created for them to breathe. Hiro regretted not taking Oxygen Storage now.

After almost exhausting his entire cell storage, the box was complete. While huddling together, the girls slept on a soft bed made of flesh. Their breathing kept distracting Hiro as their bouncy breasts seemed to massage his tentacles. But today was not the day. The girls needed the rest and the situation was dire.

"Thank you…" the girls responded to him.

Morning came sooner than they thought. Sunlight shone through the hole in the box, and Hiro retracted all the tentacles inside before converting the box back into his cell storage. To his horror, his cell storage didn't return to 80; it stood at 70. This led him to assume that every time he used his skill [Metamorphic Tentacle] to change the property of his tentacles, a portion of it was lost for good. He regretted not killing the knights who imprisoned his girls.

“It’s morning… the tentacles are gone…” Cecile, who yawned, looked around her in a daze.

"It's not a dream, Cecile. It returned inside us," Rebecca said. Her eyes had some dark bags underneath. She didn't get much sleep, and she was still wary of Hiro's tentacle.

"I-I see."

"Let's go. To the knight's order."