Chapter 259: Tentacle Lady

The four green-blue tentacles that emerged from the woman’s back, and the other four black tentacles that acted as her hair, squirmed around as she spotted Kalon.

The woman’s skin was a similar colour to her tentacles. Her skin was slightly see-through and sort of bouncy.

Her breasts were enormous, and her body was on the softer side, whilst still managing to maintain a flat stomach.

The tentacle woman looked up at Kalon and tilted her head sideways.

"What are you?" she asked.

Her voice sounded like music. It vibrated through the strange water house, and was high-pitched.

Kalon was taken aback by how non-confrontational and careless the woman seemed about being naked in front of a foreign creature.

"I..." Kalon stuttered. "I’m an ally. I’m just not from here."

Coralia’s head returned to its normal angle.

"Oh, okay."

What she did next took Kalon by complete surprise.

She simply continued working whatever chores she had.

One of the green-blue tentacles from her back reached for a woven basket of pale shells against the wall. Another swept the smooth floor in slow circles, pushing grit toward a vent that sucked it away into the open water outside.

The black tentacles of her hair drifted as she moved, occasionally curling around a tool or a jar without her needing to use her hands. She sorted the shells by size on a grown shelf, then used a third tentacle to seal a small pouch of dried plant matter and hang it from a hook.

She did not cover her breasts, her ass, or her frontal region. She did not even bother turning her body away from him. She treated Kalon like a mild interruption in a normal morning.

Kalon floated where he was and watched her for a few seconds longer than he meant to.

Who could blame him? This was by far one of the most erotic looking aliens he had seen before. Not only that, but she had a unique look that rivalled even Nyphara’s.

She really did not care about being looked at in such a way. There was no tension in her body and movements. She had no care for who Kalon was, what he was doing, or how he had even got there.

Strange... Very strange.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but the feeling caught him off guard this time. However, speech was still perfectly fine underwater.

The adaptation had handled everything smoothly.

"What’s the state of your world right now?" he asked, trying to find a topic to talk about.

Coralia glanced at him while a tentacle stacked the last of the shells into a neat line.

"Everything is perfect," she said. "Nothing is wrong."

Kalon frowned.

"I was told the seas were alive. That there was danger here."

"There was," Coralia said, still working. "Old danger. Things in the deep that moved when they should not. Monsters. Broken currents. Places where the water itself tried to swallow whole districts. That was before. Those problems were dealt with. The world is at peace again. The waters are still."

She said it the way someone on Earth might say the weather had cleared. There was no care in her tone at all. She just gave the facts while she cleaned.

Another tentacle wrung out a soft cloth and started wiping along the translucent wall in long, patient strokes.

At that moment, Kalon checked the system.

To his knowledge, this planets danger should have been very high. At least it was when he had first discovered it.

But now...

Thalassia’s threat tier sat at E.

He almost laughed.

He had taken too long. While he had been buried in Cupid, Delphinium, cards, and stage progress, this planet’s conflict had burned out on its own.

What had been listed as serious when he first saw the name was now quiet water and domestic chores. The most boring world he had landed on so far, and it was his own fault for arriving late. There was no crisis to solve. No army to break. Just a peaceful sea and a woman doing housework.

He looked back at Coralia and used Arcane Sight to see the affinities active inside of her.

There were two active.

Ink and Water.

She’s a dual affinity carrier... Impressive

"You’re dual affinity," he said, not bothering to hide the fact he could read her. "Ink and Water."

Coralia’s black hair-tentacles flicked once, like a shrug. A green-blue tentacle kept wiping the wall without pause.

"Yes."

"How did you become Tide-Lady?"

Whatever that meant.

"Tide-Lord is the title the currents give to the blessed ones. I became it because I was the first and only person to merge a water skill and an ink skill into one. After that, the still waters listened to me more than they listened to anyone else. No one else in the world is capable of such things, so I was given that title."

While she spoke, two tentacles guided a small net through a side opening, catching drifting debris and packing it into a disposal sac. Another adjusted a glowing vein in the wall until the light evened out. Her giant naked breasts shifted with the movement. She still did not acknowledge that as unusual.

Kalon watched the chores more than the explanation for a moment.

"Why are you naked?" he asked, finally.

Coralia stopped.

All eight tentacles paused. She turned her head toward him fully, dark eyes confused in a clean, honest way.

"Naked? What does that mean?"

Kalon opened his mouth, then closed it again.

In a world of permanent water, with no air rooms and no fabric culture that mattered, the word had nothing to attach to. She was not being shameless on purpose. She had never needed the concept.

"It means without clothes," he said. "Covering. Fabric on the body."

Coralia looked down at herself, then back at him.

"Why would I put fabric on my body in the water?"

"On my world, people do."

"Oh," she said, and went back to wiping the wall. "Your world sounds inconvenient."