NOVEL NEXT Chapter Twenty One
I’ve tested out my grabbers a lot. I’ve thrown a lot of mud on the whole concept of me having ‘breasts’, but I can’t deny how useful these things actually are! They explode out too fast for the naked eye, and their bite force is strong enough that I’ve managed to break some of the smaller wolves in the area in half a few times with the sheer speed and power of them. Honestly? It never gets old. Or maybe it will one day, but it certainly hasn’t in the past week or so of my testing things! I hope when I get bigger that they get even stronger and bite everything in half! …But I worry that that means my weird plant-breasts are only gonna get bigger to compensate, though.
Eh, It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be.
If they get bigger they get bigger, and that’s that.
It’s not like they’re heavy or in the way or anything.
And maybe this is just me trying to force myself to accept the facts, but hey, at least I’m attractive, right?
Maybe I’ll meet somebody nice and fall in love in this life!
I never really cared about anyone much before in my previous one, so maybe this is my chance!
Although, um… I suppose I’ll have to find someone that I don’t want to eat.
And you know, isn’t good looking food naturally tastier?
…Romance actually might be harder to achieve than I think.
~~~
Something amazing happened! I was roaming around looking for more prey since it’s gotten pretty scarce in this area lately (for no discernable reason at all), and I actually found one of those huge capybaras! It felt like I hadn’t seen one of them in forever, and I love those big and kind guys, so I followed it to make sure it was living a good capybara life, you know? But then guess what! It went home to even more of them! There was a cute clearing where a natural hot spring was, and the location was ringed by patches of berry bushes around it. At least a dozen of the capybaras were roaming around the place, either relaxing in the water or resting by it. It basically looked like a hidden capybara paradise, and oh man I freaking loved it!
There was a teeny tiny little island in the middle of the hot spring where a few of them would occasionally come up to take a break from the warmth, and I thought it would be the perfect place to photosynthesize on while I watch over the wonderful guys having their wonderful life. For the first time in a long while I was going to have something to watch while I was relaxing! It’s not like I really ever slept, so I’ve always just kind of been zoning out, or thinking, or pretending to sleep, or singing little songs every time I sunbathed. This would be much more preferable to any of that!
So yeah, after giving a few of the capybaras some pets with my makeshift ‘hands’, I dipped my roots into the hot springs to try and get over to the island, right? And you know what~? Turns out I freaking hate hot water touching my roots! I put my tentacles in there and they were just fine, but heaven forbid any of it touches my roots at all. Besides, they were never really fans of being submerged in the first place, just like the rest of me. I may be a plant, but I’m certainly not an aquatic plant. There was that time when I was much smaller when I had to swim through that lake to escape the evil deer that almost ate me, but that was a life or death situation, you know? I have no plans of submerging myself if I can help it. Instead, give me a pleasant rain or some wet soil any day.
Anyways, long story short, I decided to be stubborn about it and just use my tentacles to make it there. The hot spring might have been large, but it wasn’t particularly
deep, you know? Maybe it was just deep enough for the most part that the big horse sized capybaras could sit down comfortably in it; That’s plenty shallow enough for me to walk on my tendrils and make it across. In a way I feel like a big water spider doing it, although I’m sure this isn’t how water spiders work, right? Ah, who knows, I’m in a fantasy world! It wouldn’t be that weird if there turned out to be water spiders here who work exactly like this! Maybe they’d even be my size, too!
Wouldn't that be so interesting to see?!
~~~
Yup, relaxing on this little island was practically made for me. The capybaras were wonderful, the lighting was sublime, the water… Well at least it was water, hot or not, and so the soil was plenty wet enough for me to not have to get too close. But if I did decide to park myself near the shore, sometimes I would lean over and let my inner tentacles explode out and catch some fish or water snakes for me that had wandered nearby.
You don’t understand how nice it is to be able to hold down something that’s thrashing around inside of my digestive juices. I already liked feeling things splash around in there, but holding down my prey so they can’t hurt me or get all over the place while they thrash also has a sublime niceness to it! Ah, maybe I am like a spider in a few ways. I prefer being a plant though!
Oh!
Hey!
I forgot to mention!
Over the past few days that I’ve been staying here with the capybaras, something amazing happened!
I’m starting to grow a new frond on top of my head!
And this frond has a bunch of little buds branching off of it!
The frond comes down on the opposite side of my head from the camellia flower, and it makes it to where my ear would be, if I had any. I’m sure that must be a design flaw on this silly plant body of mine, thinking that people wouldn’t notice my complete lack of ears! Oh but anyway yeah, my frond has 6 cute little buds coming off of it, all nice and evenly spaced and facing down. They’re still very small, but they have the tiniest hint of purple at the start of them, and then turn white for the last 2/3rds. Isn’t that so cute?! It’s amazing! I’m so happy I’m growing more cool flowers, and I can’t wait to see what they’ll do! Aaaaah, thank you plant body, it’s the best~!
So yeah, I’ve been busy admiring my new little buds and wondering what they’ll be. And of course I’ve been enjoying this leisurely time at the capybara commune. But you know, a plant’s still gotta eat! And there’s no way the little turtles, snakes, fish and frogs that ring the place would be enough to fill up this demanding body of mine, you know! So I sneak off every night to go find a nice meal or 10. You know how it is. Can’t be showing the capybaras too horrific of a scene in broad daylight, no matter how chill they’ve been about the occasional snack snatch that I’ve shown them.
Is it a pain in the butt every time I have to cross this big hot lake?
Yes!
But everything is worth it.
We have to keep reminding ourselves of that!
~~~
Heyyy, so I’ve been branching off in a different direction from the lake each day, right? Not too crazy far of an angle each time, either, because I’m trying to take my sweet time with it. If anything, I’m trying to treat this place like a vacation while I’m staying with the capybaras, so I’m taking things pretty slowly, all things considered. Pretty sure I still have a good wedge in the opposite direction to explore before I decide I’ve seen everything and move on, so yeah, best to enjoy it, right?
And you know what I found today (actually tonight)?
I found my first group of slimes!
More fantasy fare, yaaay~!
So of course I grabbed the first one I saw and stuffed it into my stomach! You think I’d waste time when I'm trying to see what a slime tastes like? Please. That thing is going right into my stomach for sure, just like all the other magical creatures I can lay my hands (tentacles) on!
It’s wiggling around in my stomach a bit, which is nice. You know how much I like that, for sure. I’m actually even gonna unfurl my inner tentacles and try and keep this thing in place, ‘cuz it’s kind of moving a bit too much, you know? Yeah, that’s probably for the best, for sure.
Oh, um...
I’m…
I’m actually kind of getting a bit worried now?
…I like things splashing around in my stomach, for sure, but um…
You know what? I don’t like things just splashing around and not dissolving at all! It’d be like putting something in your mouth and then just leaving it there without chewing or swallowing it! Such a totally unsatisfying waste!
…This is bullshit.
Well, I guess my breast-tentacles serve the added feature of me being able to pull things out that just won’t digest, although I hate that I have to find that out in the first place, dammit. This is so stupid! How are you going to show me a nice bouncy jello-like slime and then tell me that I can’t eat it, of all the things?! I want to believe that if I somehow get even more potent digestive enzymes one day, then I’ll finally be able to eat them, but I seriously doubt that! My enzymes are the best! Really! I’m sure I could melt a little dense rock in less than a minute, for sure!
I hate this, agh~!
It’s so unfair!
I promise I'm gonna figure out how to eat you stupid things!