“Yes? Return? What’s the reason?”
Meanwhile, Medic Tentacle, who was enjoying a leisurely time on a remote planet unrelated to Earth, couldn’t hide his surprise at the sudden return order through the communication device.
When a superior gives an order, obedience is expected.
Such orders are naturally understood, but there must also be a reasonable justification for the command.
For instance, a superior can’t just say to a subordinate, “You must go to Earth and die three times,” without it feeling reasonable in the context of the mission.
Thus, Medic Tentacle raised a proper question.
“Ah, well, you see….”
However, it seemed they hadn’t anticipated that much, as a long silence followed, leaving the communication device hanging with ‘well, you see’ on the other side.
In reality, Earth was an extremely distant area, being the frontline in a location where it wouldn’t be possible to sit still without a significant sense of mission.
Therefore, if they refused, it would be a massive loss, and it would surely take a while to find a suitable replacement.
Essentially, the upper echelon had determined that “the qualified individual to minimize the damage from the monsters” was indeed them.
After a lengthy silence, the voice from the communication device burst forth with something anyone could say as a flattery.
“Really, without you and your executives, I think Earth would be in trouble! You guys are the best! Hahaha!”
Medic Tentacle had anticipated this to some extent.
Surely something must have gone wrong after they left.
At the same time, he was stirred by the audacity of the monster on the other end referring to them as ‘you’ and ‘executives.’
‘They probably don’t even know my name, do they?’
“Yes, Medic Tentacle. I will obey.”
Well, if I’m told to do it, I’ll have to do it.
The futile tentacle mass relaxed and rolled across the floor.
Even if it was forced, the sweet rest had suddenly met its end; there was no way his motivation wouldn’t wane after that.
“Alright! We’ll send a small ship you can take alone, so it’d be great if you could return immediately upon arrival!”
“Yes, may I take this opportunity to end the call?”
“Oh, of course! As much as you want! Hang up whenever you feel like it.”
The voice over the communication device, which he no longer wanted to hear.
Tentacle turned off the communication device and wished for a moment of rest.
‘Come as slowly as possible….’
Come as slowly as possible.
Before returning to the ship, wishing for leisure on this planet.
However, disregarding that wish, the small, fast ship arrived at the planet he was on in an instant.
‘Damn it.’
Medic Tentacle had no choice but to board the ship.
The upper management, who had pushed to return to the mother base upon disembarking the ship, now welcomed him back in this manner.
He hated all of it.
As a monster and a soldier, he didn’t fear death itself.
Still, being dragged to a place of death didn’t sit well with him.
That was precisely how he felt at that moment.
Sitting in a small ship that guaranteed comfort he couldn’t feel aboard his own ship, he still found the whole situation extremely unpleasant.
0.01 setr, which is 14.4 hours in Earth time.
The journey took about two hours longer than Mari’s luxurious living on the plane.
Unlike Mari, who enjoyed the richness of a first-class seat for 12 hours, Medic Tentacle was stuck on the ship, feeling void while clinging his suckers to the ship’s walls.
“We have arrived. Have a good time.”
‘Good time, my foot.’
It’ll probably be a hell of a time, he thought, recalling the dirty words from the professor or whoever had come to lecture the ship back in Earth.
With that thought, Medic Tentacle kicked the interior of the small ship with his tentacles.
He didn’t know why the term for male genitalia was considered a curse in human language, but it had a nice resonance when it came to mouthfuls, and he vented his frustration onto the ship.
The sound of the suckers sticking and releasing echoed through the ship.
Formalities, attire, it didn’t matter; he was yanked in here, and he only just now realized that where his body touched the ground was empty.
So what? Are they going to kick me out just because I’m not wearing anything?
Whatever, let it be, he squinted and headed straight for the recovery room.
“Oh, you’re finally here.”
“Yeah, I’m here. What the heck happened while I was gone?”
Once he entered the recovery room, he finally donned his attire and asked his close underlings in the recovery room.
After moving his long tentacle mass a few times, he returned to a state not much different from when he departed the ship.
“Oh, was it that?”
“Guessing from the skinny snout, something must’ve gone down, right? Was it tough?”
Skinny snout; it was Medic Tentacle’s way of belittling Evil Croaker.
With the executives absent, the ship had momentarily operated under the command of one captain.
Unquestionably, it was the monster soldiers who would bear the brunt of the fallout.
With that in mind, Medic Tentacle left a word of sympathy to the soldiers, but the monsters in the recovery room shook their heads instead.
“We did have an incident, but… it wasn’t as tough as we thought.”
“Huh?”
Medic Tentacle was puzzled.
His first impression of Evil Croaker was that of a foolish monster with muscle dense brain tissue.
However, they said it hadn’t been that hard after all…
Typically, if one is under a foolish superior, the underlings must surely have it tough.
So how could it possibly be that it wasn’t as hard?
“Unexpectedly competent, huh? From your speech, I thought they’d struggle…”
After hearing his subordinate, Medic Tentacle wondered if maybe his superior was more capable than he thought.
He intertwined his tentacle mass, seemingly uncomfortable, crossed his arms, and began to reevaluate Evil Croaker’s abilities when…
“No. Remember the day you left?”
However, just as Medic Tentacle thought that, the underling in the recovery room immediately corrected him, attempting to address the blunder.
When he turned his gaze to the soldier, the gaze he had invited continued.
“On that day, after a few self-praising lectures on mental training, he gathered the energy from the transmission room, saying ‘be good’, and just took off to the Black Zone by himself.”
He flew off to the Black Zone all by himself.
Finally realizing the reason for his return, Medic Tentacle tilted his head at Evil Croaker’s audacious actions.
Surely he had warned about the Black Zone, hadn’t he?
No, wait… did he forget?
He mulled it over, but he clearly remembered emphasizing it multiple times.
If he hadn’t delivered that warning, the upper management would have torn him apart for the lack of proper handover.
“…Is he an idiot?”
The question slipped out as a pure inquiry, drifting aimlessly in the air.
Superior or not, when one is foolish, they are just that.
The underling monster still had a lot to say, and instead of answering his question, he focused on how stupid Evil Croaker was.
“Then he came back with his eyes unfocused and screamed at the slightest brushes of the surroundings…”
“So, in the end, the skinny snout was sent back to the upper management?”
“No other choice, was there? How could we handle that? We can’t put him into the intensive care needed for absolute stability…”
Based on Medic Tentacle’s hypothesis, the soldier nodded vigorously, shaking three of its palms upward.
Medic Tentacle thought that even if he were one of the underlings, he would have done the same, and he busily operated the machinery to normalize the ship.
“To return the ship to the state it was in before that skinny snout arrived, it’ll be quite the job.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, you don’t have to worry; it’s almost done.”
“Really?”
Medic Tentacle looked over the ship’s devices per his subordinate’s words and, lo and behold, it was true.
Evil Croaker had indeed meddled with the recovery device settings, claiming, ‘That device is for the weak!’
But now there was a recovery room that was almost as it had been just before he left.
With nothing else to touch, Medic Tentacle widened his slightly squinting eyes.
He certainly could not leave this unasked.
“What happened?”
“Looking like a crazy monster, we preemptively compressed the entire ship’s data and stashed it in some corner as though it were important functions.”
“Oh….”
If just one file leaked, the whole ship’s data would be exposed, meaning it was vulnerable to privacy breaches.
But positively speaking, it was recovery data for the personnel.
Medic Tentacle admired the foresight of the underling, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.
Under the pressure of Medic Tentacle’s gaze, the subordinate shuddered slightly, sensing a foreboding feeling creep down his spine.
“Say, wouldn’t you like to try for an executive position?”
“I’d rather be deactivated and killed, being an executive around here means dying.”
To the excessively death-obsessed capable monster in the recovery room, Medic Tentacle casually chucked out a bone-chilling remark.
“Hm… If you want to die that badly, I could send you to the Black Zone when the agreement ends.”
“That was a slip of the tongue. I don’t want to die; I also don’t want to be an executive, please spare me.”
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