I released the tentacle I was holding while kissing Emilia.
The tentacle wrapped around my arm unwound and its presence faded away.
I continued kissing Emilia, holding her face with my now free arm.
She also kept intertwining her tongue with mine.
'Huh?'
I felt Emilia's body, which had been suspended in the air, slowly descending.
We parted our lips.
The tentacle that had been holding Emilia in the air seemed to lose strength and lowered her to the ground.
However, it didn't completely release her.
The tentacle was still wrapped around Emilia's limbs and waist.
She ended up kneeling in front of me with her arms tied behind her back.
"Oh? Mr. Castoloni! I-I've come down."
Emilia struggled with her body.
"And somehow my arms and legs are a bit... nngh. Just a little looser... Hm. No. It's not coming off."
"Still, the situation has improved a bit."
"...Yes."
Emilia blushed and averted her gaze when our eyes met.
It was natural for her to be embarrassed, having had her breasts touched, nipples sucked, and even kissed by me.
She was also exposing about half of her chest in front of me.
"I'd like to cover you with clothes, but... they'll just dissolve anyway. It might be better to wait until the tentacle releases you to put on clothes."
"Y-yes."
I put some branches into the campfire that had started to blaze.
"I'll quickly build up the fire and try to set it on the creature."
"Oh? Mr. Castoloni. Your arm..."
There was a red mark on my forearm where the tentacle had wrapped around, as if it had been burned.
"It's fine. Don't worry about it."
It really was fine.
I felt like new tissue was rapidly building up inside.
New flesh was growing on the area that had been red just moments ago.
Emilia spoke to me with a tearful face.
"It looks like it hurts a lot."
"It's bearable."
"Could you bring your arm closer to me for a moment?"
"Pardon?"
"Since I can't use my arms right now, please bring it to my mouth."
"My arm?"
Emilia nodded seriously.
I put down the branch I was using to stoke the fire and brought my arm to her mouth.
She gently kissed the reddened part of my arm.
[Heal]
Sssss-
My arm, which was already growing new flesh, started healing at an incredibly rapid pace.
"Oh! Thank you, priest."
"Give me the other side too."
I had Emilia treat my other arm as well.
It had gotten a bit darker.
It seemed like the sun was setting faster, probably because we were in the forest.
I lit several branches and gathered them together.
The fire grew quite large.
"Priest, I'm going to try setting fire to the tentacle. Please let me know immediately if anything feels strange."
"Okay."
I brought the fire to the middle of a thick tentacle.
Sorry, Bibik.
"How is it?"
"Nngh. Hah."
Emilia struggled with her body, but the tentacle didn't budge at all.
As expected, it had no effect.
I put the branch back into the campfire.
"It seems fire has no effect."
"Still."
"Yes?"
"Still, it's not like we haven't made any progress at all.
When you blocked the tentacle and we, we kissed, it lowered me down..."
Emilia shyly acknowledged our situation.
Then,
Grumble.
A sound came from her stomach.
Emilia bit her lower lip and squeezed her eyes shut.
[Why. Why. Why now of all times.]
I smiled, finding her reaction cute.
"Let's have some food from the canned goods for now."
What we had picked up from the shore was canned corn.
I opened the can with a knife and bent the lid to make a makeshift spoon.
We took turns eating the corn, one spoonful for Emilia, one for me.
"Here. Last bite, ah-"
"Ah-"
Emilia ate the corn I fed her well, gulp by gulp.
She chewed the corn, then suddenly burst into laughter.
"What is it?"
"I just thought it was funny that if the tentacle suddenly moves while we're eating like this, we'd have to kiss..."
"We'd both taste like corn."
Emilia shook her head.
"No, we wouldn't."
"No?"
"I know how to use Clean magic. I'll... use Clean magic to make our mouths clean for you."
Emilia's ears turned red, seemingly finding her own words strange.
I pretended not to notice.
"We should use this empty can as a water container. I'm thinking of washing it in the stream right over there and filling it with water.
Is that okay?"
The stream was visible from the campfire.
Still seeming uneasy, Emilia looked back and forth between the tentacle and the stream before speaking.
"You have to... come back quickly."
I washed the can in the stream and filled it with water.
I kept watching the campfire area.
Fortunately, the tentacle didn't move.
I brought the water back to the campfire.
"Priest, would you like some water?"
"No matter how clean it looks, it's better if I purify it just in case."
"That would be better."
Was it Bear Grylls? Or that bald guy?
I can't remember exactly, but anyway, someone drank water from a valley thinking it was clean and got sick.
I brought the water close to Emilia's face.
[Clean]
Emilia and I took turns drinking the purified water.
The campfire crackled and blazed in the increasingly dark forest.
Having filled our stomachs and quenched our thirst, we sat side by side and talked.
"So that's how you became a priest."
Emilia had been born an orphan and became a priest to make a living.
It was interesting to hear a story that wasn't in the novel.
"What about Ikan? How did you end up running a toy store?"
After learning that we were both twenty years old, we naturally started speaking more casually.
I thought to myself, hoping Leah would answer.
'Should I just say I inherited it from my late father?'
[Yeah]
A short answer came.
I made up an appropriate story.
"It was a store my father used to run.
My mother passed away shortly after giving birth to me when I was young. My father died of illness when I was fifteen.
So I inherited the store at a young age.
Honestly, I didn't like it at first, but when I thought about how precious the store was to my father, I decided to give it a try."
"...I see. Then, Ikan, where-"
"Shh."
I put a finger to my lips.
In the quiet forest.
Only the crackling of the campfire could be heard.
About ten steps away, something was moving.
A blue-green, droplet-shaped monster.
It was a slime.
I whispered to Emilia.
"Can we use that?"
"Probably?"
It had appeared in the novel before.
In this world, every house has a slime in the bathroom.
The slime eats urine and feces, decomposes them internally, and later excretes them as fertilizer.
The protagonist, who had lived in the demon realm since childhood.
When he first came to the human world and saw slimes, which are demon-race creatures, being overworked to decompose human waste, there was a comical scene where he indignantly rose up in protest.
I slowly got up and approached the slime.
I was a bit scared.
Because I didn't know what it would feel like.
So I used Vajra before grabbing it, but it was surprisingly unremarkable.
It felt like touching a water balloon that doesn't burst when touched?
It didn't even try to escape from my arms.
"I caught it, but where should we put it?"
"How about inside that crate over there?"
"Good idea."
I took out the canned goods inside and put the slime in the crate.
When I closed the lid, it just moved around lightly inside without trying to escape.
"Ikan."
Emilia called me with an anxious voice.
The tentacle, which had been quiet all this time, had started to move again.
"Don't be scared, Emilia."
I went to her and kissed her.
Every time we kissed, I smelled a fresh rose scent instead of corn, probably because Emilia had used Clean magic.
When we parted our lips, the tentacle had stopped in place.
I was about to put my hand on Emilia's chest.
She offered her chest to me and said.
"Rose."
"Hm?"
"People who are a bit close to me call me Emilia, but those who are really close to me call me Rose."
Emilia Rosebloom.
Rose.
In the novel, it was a name she had only allowed the Black Knight to use.
I looked into her clear eyes and said.
"Rose. Don't be scared."
We kissed.
I gently caressed her breasts.
I pinched her nipples lightly like tweezers and twisted them gently.
A monster that neither fire nor sword could harm.
To escape from this monster, we needed to escalate our physical contact.
Even Emilia, no, Rose, now knew this fact.
However, it wasn't easy to muster up the courage.
There was no 100% guarantee that we would escape from the tentacle even if we did it, it was just a guess.
And for Rose, a clergy member, losing her virginity meant abandoning her own identity.
When we finished kissing and turned our heads, the tentacle had returned to its place.
Rose, seeming to have lost her strength, collapsed and rested her forehead on my shoulder.
She looked tired.
And for good reason.
She had fallen into the sea, drifted to a deserted island, and gone through many experiences with a strange man.
I held her and patted her back.
"Rose. If you're tired, take a nap.
I'll keep watch."
"I'm sorry, Ikan.
I'll sleep for a bit and then we'll switch.
If that thing moves, wake me up right away.
If I don't wake up... um...
You can do it even while I'm asleep."
I threw some of the branches I had piled up next to me into the campfire.
"Okay."
Rose quickly fell asleep in my arms.
***
Emilia Rosebloom opened her eyes.
She had fallen asleep in Ikan's arms.
When she opened her eyes, she realized she had slept for far too long.
The dark night had already turned into a bluish dawn.
The campfire was dying out, with only embers left, emitting smoke.
Ikan was holding her tightly with both arms, sharing his body heat.
Rose quickly raised her head.
"...!"
Ikan's clothes were almost in tatters.
The burn-like red marks that had appeared on his arms when he grabbed the tentacle the day before.
Similar wounds had appeared all over Ikan's body, including his face.
"Ikan!"
Ikan Castoloni blinked his eyes and said.
"Rose, you're awake?"
He smiled faintly.
The two tentacles that had been threatening them continuously yesterday were sprawled on the ground some distance away.
Tears welled up in Rose's eyes.
"What, what happened?"
Ikan answered briefly.
"Nothing happened."