TTT Vol. 1 pt. 31

I was really looking forward to getting to test out my new tentacles on Lada later. However, before we could do that, I had to finish working for the day. Lada did, too.

Then we would both relax together at night and have no short amount of fun together.

Tonight’s going to be great. I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to anything as much as I’m looking forward to this.

I couldn’t help but to have a bit of extra pep in my step as I worked. Or rather, it was more like an extra bounce in my tentacles.

Though, when I heard Granny shout for me, that pep disappeared. “Get in here!” she shouted.

I could tell when she was calling for me versus calling for Lada because she always called for Lada by name.

Heading into the kitchen, I saw Granny standing over a large pot with the pile of leaves next to it. “I’m teachin’ ya how to make this. Get up here.”

I thought I was in trouble for something minor, but no. For the first time, she actually wanted to teach me something, and I felt… pretty happy about that.

I wonder if this means she likes me more now. Maybe—

“Did I stutter?!”

I jumped at her shout and lifted myself up onto the counter.

“Now, pay attention. It’s important that ya place the petals in as soon as ya see the first bubbles poppin’ up in the water. Put it in any later and it’ll be too hot and damage the leaves. Basically turns the brew into poison. By placing it in as soon as the water starts boilin’, it ain’t so hot that it’ll trigger the bad stuff and actually… for a lack of better terms, ‘cook’ it away. Ya can’t mix it or anythin’ durin’ this first part either since that’ll trigger it to release more than the heat can handle. By the time the water is really boilin’, if it ain’t turnin’ black, then ya know you’ve done it properly. It should take a nice, pink color. Then ya start stirrin’ it and can get as rough with the leaves as ya want. Ya want to make sure to get as much flavor out of it as possible.”

UNDERSTOOD.

HAVE A QUESTION.

“Then spit it out.”

ARE THERE BENEFITS

TO THE TEA?

“I’ve always been told it keeps your heart healthy. Though I think they just say that because it helps men out in the bedroom. I guess gettin’ hard means good blood flow which means a healthy heart.”

Oh. So it has those kind of uses.

“Only other benefit I know of is that it tastes good. You can taste it once it’s done since ya got the leaves for it.”

It only took about another three minutes for it to count as done, apparently. And surely enough, the water the leaves were boiled in turned into a soft, pink color. It actually looked really pretty. Even prettier when Granny pulled out a glass to scoop some of the tea into.

The liquid was perfectly clear, too.

“Drink up then get back to work,” Granny ordered.

I nodded and opened up to dip some of my tongue tentacles into the glass.

“That glass is gettin’ scrubbed extra hard after this,” Granny said.

As for how it tasted…

Well, it tasted like tea with a very slight… flower-y flavor?

I was unimpressed with the flavor given what needed done to acquire the petals and how carefully it needed to be brewed, but it wasn’t bad.

“Now get back to work! Finish preppin’ the tables since folk will be comin’ in for lunch soon,” Granny said.

I dumped the rest of the tea she poured me into my mouth, saluted, and got back to work.

Later that evening, a small boy trying to get the attention of the other patrons caught my attention while I was cleaning up after a drunken patron who made a mess of the floor with his food.

“Did anybody else see it?! Come on! Somebody had to see it!” the boy whined before having his head rubbed by his father who was sitting next to him.

“You’re still on about that, huh?” the father asked.

“Because nobody believes me!”

“Listen, it’s not that we don’t believe you, it’s just that we didn’t see it. We’re not going to say we saw it if we didn’t see it.”

“But—”

“You should always trust what you see with your own eyes. But just because you saw it doesn’t mean that anybody else saw it. If I saw your mother suddenly grow five mouths and twenty arms, but you didn’t see it, would that mean I’m lying?” The question earned a smack on the arm from his wife.

“I… I guess not.”

“But you’d find it hard to believe me, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah…”

The father rubbed his son’s head again. “Good boy. Now, eat up. Gotta put some more muscle on those tiny arms of yours!”

“But eating doesn’t make you stronger.”

“Yeah, well, as long as you’re wearing some clothes, you’ll be able to trick the ladies into thinking you’re strong instead of fat.” The wife smacked the father again.

“Would it make girls like Lada like me?”

As curious as I was about what the boy was talking about seeing, it was him yearning for Lada’s attention that really caught my attention.

He was adorable.

Also, the kid had excellent taste.

“I think she might be a bit too old for you,” the father said.

“But she has huge boobs,” the boy said.

The father was in the middle of taking a drink when he heard the boy say that. He spit most of it out back into the mug in front of his mouth. Then he made the mistake of looking at his wife’s chest… which really didn’t have much there.

“Well, darling?” the wife asked. “You are going to tell him that such a thing isn’t important and that there is more to a woman than her chest, aren’t you?”

“Ri-right,” the husband said. “Listen, there’s more to a woman than her boobs.”

The boy nodded and said, “Like her butt!”

Good thing the father knew better than to take another drink since he would have just spit it out again.

“Darling,” the wife said with a terrifying aura surrounding her, “I have a feeling that our precious, innocent, kind little boy has been hearing men talk about things he should not have been hearing. Would you happen to know about what gave him such ideas?”

The father could not have looked more terrified. “I—I, uh… we-well… it’s uh…”

The boy looked straight at his mom and said, “I found dad drinking with his friends and they were talking about boobs and butts. Dad told me to make sure to get a woman who has big both because I’ll be depressed if I have nothing to squeeze in my hands. He said that squeezing a woman’s body is the ultimate purpose of life for a man, so it’s pointless if she doesn’t have anything to squeeze.”

“Oh! I see!” the wife replied, suddenly sounding far more cheery than before. She even smiled with closed eyes. Yet… that terrifying aura surrounding her only grew darker and stronger. “I suppose I can understand where your father is coming from. After all! The purpose of life for women is to find something strong and sturdy that they can squeeze with their hands. It is just no good at all if all they have to squeeze is a mushy, tiny pickle! Now then, your father and I have to go have a talk. Be a good boy and finish all your food, alright?”

“Okay!”

The boy returned to focusing on his food while the wife dragged her husband out of the tavern by his ear. Those around who heard all of that couldn’t help but to laugh or shrug as if it was a common occurrence.

I… I wonder if he’s going to be okay.

Fortunately, one of the patrons nearby noticed how concerned I looked and said, “Hey, tentacles, don’t you worry about them. They’ve been like this since before their boy was born. They’ll be acting like inseparable lovebirds by morning.”

Huh… well, they’ve been together for this long, so I guess whatever they do works for them.

I nodded to the patron and got back to work.

Then again, paying attention to the patrons counted as part of my work, I think. Getting to know them just felt like… what I was supposed to do. Get to know them. Be able to recognize whenever something might be wrong. Learn what their regular orders were. Banter with them and make them feel welcomed and like we’re all friends. I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to be considered their friend, not just their waiter. I wanted all of us to look out for each other.

Just like my retirement plans.

I froze for a moment when I thought that. Considering that I never once thought about retiring while in my current body, that thought had to have been carried over from my previous life, right?

I think I was some sort of researcher before. That explains why I feel like it’s so natural to observe and try to analyze everything. It felt like my purpose. But at the same time… this feels like my purpose, too. Did I used to want to retire and open a tavern? Even thinking that just now makes me feel… excited. Spending the rest of my life on this island helping out in the tavern doesn’t sound like a bad deal at all. If anything, it almost feels like it’s something I’ve always yearned for. A nice, simple life.

The more I thought about it, the happier I was.

Spending the rest of my life working in a tavern with Lada by my side.

What more could I ask for?

I—

“Hey,” the same boy from earlier said, poking me in the side of my body and causing me to jump. “Did you see it?”

After calming down from the sudden surprise, I held up my sign to ask,

SEE WHAT?

“The airship fight!” the boy answered.

AIRSHIP FIGHT?

“Yeah!”

I could have just told him that I had no idea what he was talking about, but I was curious. So, I asked him for some information instead. I asked him about where and when it was first.

“A couple of weeks ago! I took my telescope out to the edge to look at the stars, and then I saw two airships fighting way out in the sky! There was a big one chasing a little one shooting all sorts of cannons and stuff at it!”

A couple of weeks ago? Well, I only got here a couple of weeks ago, so… wait.

I asked the boy how far out in the sky the fight looked to happen.

“Umm… I don’t know how far, but it looked really far. I only saw what was happening because of my telescope.”

Is it possible?

“I saw the little ship get hit and there were some explosions, so I ran back to my parents in case it was gonna crash! But by the time my dad made it to the edge with me… the ships were gone and he carried me home and made me go to bed.”

Two airships fighting. Sounds like one was being chased and took damage. They were out far enough that a telescope was needed to see the details, so they were probably all the way out past the very farthest islands. The dates line up, too. I think I have a new theory about how I ended up all the way out there. What else would explain it? Maybe I fell off the ship and landed where I woke up? Then again, I was in good condition when I woke up. I would think that I would have gotten injured if I fell off of a ship being attacked. Well, maybe I was with the attackers? There could have been a gust of wind that blew me overboard? I don’t know. And even though I’m thinking this hard about it… normally, I’d have a feeling that I’m remembering something. I’d get some tiny snippet of a memory or something. But there isn’t anything this time. Maybe it’s a false lead. Maybe this kid didn’t actually see anything. Though, it would probably be a good idea to go and see if anybody has a map of the world around here. I should try to figure out exactly where I am. Depending on the region, it might not even make any sense for there to have ever been airships nearby. If the kid did actually see something, he probably saw some giant sky beasts fighting.

The more I thought about it, the less likely it was that the kid saw what he thought he saw.

There was also the chance he was making it all up for attention.

“Do you believe me?” the boy asked me. “Nobody else does. I know my dad keeps on telling me that he doesn’t think I’m lying… but I know they think it.”

The boy looked genuinely defeated. If I said no then he was probably going to cry. So, even if I wasn’t sure if I could believe him or not, where was the harm in playing along? I didn’t want to make a kid cry.

I BELIEVE YOU.

“You do?! Yes! I knew somebody would!” the boy cheered. “I knew I wasn’t making it up! Now I just have to convince everybody else…”

Sorry, kid, but I don’t think anybody else is going to play along.

“I think I know what to do. Thanks!”

You know what to do?

I was in the process of writing something down on my board when the kid turned around and ran out of the tavern.

Fun kid. Hope he gets over this soon though.

The last few hours of work were simple enough. I took care of the remaining patrons, made everything extra spotless after they were gone, and then joined Lada in sitting down at one of the tables where we both sighed and gave our bodies a chance to rest.

GOOD WORK TODAY.

Lada smiled and nodded. “You too.”

BY THE WAY. SEE MY

NEW TENTACLES?

Lada tilted her head. “I do. How did you get them? And... what can they do?”

I HAVE LOTS OF IDEAS

FOR HOW I CAN USE

— “Hey! Is Niko still here?” the father from earlier shouted, standing in the entrance to the tavern. "He never came home. Has anybody seen him?"

I never felt my gut sink so low so quickly before.