Squeeze

A couple of nasty thuds rang out as the boar's legs hit the panther, but no one paid attention to that. The Roaring Boar was dangerously close to the house. Sosora was about to have a meltdown. She had thought Nick would magically whisk away the boar similar to how he had magically appeared in the center of the forest, and that maybe he was just a coward.

The last part was certainly true, based on his pale expression as the roaring Roaring Boar approached them. But the first part seemed to be a complete delusion. Sosora started turning around when something moved in the corner of her eye.

The tentacle darted out like a snake before wrapping around the boar before anyone, including the boar, could notice. The Roaring Boar suddenly turned into a mummy with bandages of tentacle instead of linen.

The Midnight Panther was forced to let go.

The tentacle-wrapped mummy boar slowly rose into the air, paralyzed by fear. The tentacle pulled the boar inward.

As it did that, Nick and Sosora realized two things. They were in the way, so they stepped aside.

The other thing they realized was that the doorway was too small.

After bouncing against the doorframe once, the tentacle stopped awkwardly. It tried again. Maybe it could just squeeze through.

It couldn't.

Nick wasn't sure what the tentacle was using to judge the size of the boar and his door, but there was no way the boar was going to fit, even less so with the tentacle wrapped around it. It was doomed from the start.

He didn't want to need to renovate his house, but he also didn't want to tell the tentacle to give up on the boar. It seemed like they were at an impasse.

But the tentacle got an idea.

If the boar didn't fit, she just needed to make it fit. It retreated out of the doorway again and down the porch. It still held the boar up.

Suddenly, the tentacle tensed up, turning solid like rock, and then, like a boa constrictor strangling its prey, it twisted itself and applied the theory of squeezing to the boar's body.

Nick's eyes widened in brief horror as the shape of the tentacle bundle changed from short and stubby to long and slimmer than before. The Roaring Boar just barely had time to let out a cry of desperate pain and fear of death before it was in a condition where no sound would ever come from it again.

For some reason, Nick got the mental image of someone wringing the water out of a wet towel.

When it was done, without so much as letting a drop of blood slip through the cracks between each lap of the tentacle, the tentacle slid the boar inside and down to the basement. Nick and Sosora could only watch on in silence. Nick was amazed.

Sosora was downright horrified.

The tentacle could, without a doubt, give her the same treatment if it wanted. There was a reason why she had felt such bonedeep terror when she saw it. There was also finally an explanation for why she had felt that things were going to change when she first saw Nick's house.

The feeling she got told her that there was something about the house that would impact the forest. Now, she had the answer to what it was, but she wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not.

Her curiosity might have led her down a path she could not leave.

The tentacle closed the door behind it when it went down, leaving nothing but an awkward silence on the first floor.

Nick and Sosora stared at each other, both still barely able to trust what their eyes had told them.

A monster king, a being that could reduce the house they were in to rubble with them inside it and without breaking a sweat, was reduced to a…snack? It didn't even seem like the tentacle had struggled when doing it.

"I guess it's true what they say about there always being bigger fish…" Nick said after a while.

The Roaring Boar had been all cocky after chasing away the Midnight Panther only to get eaten by something even bigger and stronger than itself.

"I thi—I think I need to go," Sosora stuttered out, her mouth as weak as her knees.

Nick couldn't blame her. He was used to the tentacle and knew that, while it wasn't harmless, it didn't have any ill intentions.

"Do you think you can keep what you saw today a secret?" He asked. He didn't want Sosora's fear to get in the way of a friendly relationship with his neighbors.

Sosora hesitated on her way out and stopped for a second.

She hadn't kept her promise not to get scared. The least she could do was not tell everyone about the tentacle monster living in Nick's basement. It was a scary monster, but it wasn't like it could help that.

And what would she gain by telling everyone? The ire of Nick and that monster. She didn't want that. She might be able to prevent fools from doing anything reckless to Nick. But fools were fools for a reason.

If anything, telling others about the tentacle monster and how it effortlessly killed one of the monster kings might invite more trouble. The other tribes would want to verify those claims. And if they were verified, didn't that mean that they had a way to get rid of the monster kings and open up the center of the forest?

Sosora could only imagine the chaos that would flourish.

"O-of course," She soon answered, still a little unsteady on the legs.

It would be best if no one knew that the Roaring Boar was dead. They couldn't keep it a secret forever.

Sooner or later, the tribes would notice the absence of an apex being in the forest. The Gezercher tribe would probably realize it in a couple of days.

Until then, Sosora had to start preparing.

She took to the skies.

Nick watched her almost fall and crash into a couple of trees as she left. He had a feeling he knew why she hadn't tried escaping via the air route when the boar showed up.

His gaze fell on the Midnight Panther.