The Reincarnated Lizardman Wants a Hamburger

It’s watching us.

When I opened my eyes, I was in darkness.

A pitch-black darkness where nothing could be seen—front, back, left, right, or below.

“What just happened?”

Could it be that I was also caught up in the gate?

I am a Lizardman born in this world, but at the same time, I carry the soul of a human from another world.

However, I soon realized that I wasn’t the only one swept away by the dark waves.

“Wh-where is this!? I can’t see anything!”

Liche.

Even she, who is undeniably a part of this world in both body and soul, was panicking in the darkness.

And she wasn’t the only one.

“What is this!? What have you done! You all!”

Even the ghost who opened the gate.

I couldn’t understand what was happening, but seeing the ghost’s panicked state, it was clear that this situation wasn’t part of its plan.

Then where is this place?

It called us here.

I couldn’t comprehend what was going on.

Because we opened the gate, it came.

For now, I should stay close to Liche.

“Liche. Stay close to me. Since we don’t know where we are, we can’t afford to get separated. Who knows what the ghost might do.”

But Liche didn’t respond to my call and just stared blankly into the void.

“Liche? What are you looking at? This isn’t the time to space out.”

“Ku-Kurt. What… is that?”

“That? What are you talking about?”

You know.

“That thing in the sky. It looks like…”

Don’t look.

“Doesn’t it look like an eye?”

At Liche’s words, I instinctively looked up and nearly lost my mind at the shocking sight.

In the sky she pointed to, a massive eye, large enough to swallow the entire sky, was staring at us.

A being capable of devouring this entire world in one gulp.

Something so transcendent that even the word “monster” feels inadequate.

An entity that once saved this world from destruction on a whim, worshipped as an outer god by the Holy Kingdom.

The Black Tentacle was observing us.

And the dark space I had rationalized as just a void was, in fact, the inside of the Black Tentacle.

“Ah, ahhh…!”

The moment my eyes met the Black Tentacle, I lost all will to resist its overwhelming presence.

It was on a completely different level.

It wasn’t just about strength.

It was more akin to a phenomenon or a concept.

Can you fight and defeat the concept that “1+1=2”?

In the same way, fighting and defeating the Black Tentacle would be like trying to defeat the concept of “1+1=2.”

That’s what the Black Tentacle was.

Resistance was impossible.

In truth, I had sensed it from the beginning.

My master’s sharp senses had instinctively scanned the surroundings the moment we were swept into the darkness, and I had noticed the Black Tentacle’s presence before anyone else.

But with my senses, barely at the level of a transcendent, I couldn’t face the Black Tentacle head-on. I had instinctively ignored what I felt, deceiving my own senses.

“Ku-Kurt! What’s wrong with you!?”

“Huff. Huff… Are you okay?”

Seeing me struggling to breathe, Liche rushed over to support me, and I managed to regain some stability by feeling the warmth of another person.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you feel anything? I envy you. I wish I were as weak as you.”

It seemed Liche, with her more ordinary senses, couldn’t fully perceive the presence of that thing.

As a transcendent, I was in an awkward middle ground, barely able to grasp a fragment of the Black Tentacle’s essence. If my level were lower, I might have been like Liche, oblivious to its true nature.

“…Are you picking a fight with me now?”

“No, I mean, don’t you feel the terrifying presence of that thing?”

“What thing?”

“The Black Tentacle.”

“What!? Is that really it? No, more importantly, how do you know that, Kurt…?”

As Liche was shocked by the unexpected answer, the sound of the ghost gasping for breath suddenly reached us.

“Keu, keuh…!”

It seemed the ghost had also discovered the Black Tentacle.

Judging by its reaction, the ghost, like me, was one who could “sense the essence.”

“This can’t be…! How is it here again…! This can’t be happening! Why now, in front of me!?”

“…Because we opened the gate.”

I explained to the frantic ghost why it had come to us. But the ghost didn’t seem to understand.

“What are you talking about?”

“You opened the gate, creating a rift in dimensions, and it sensed that rift and came.”

…Wait. How do I know that?

Now that I think about it, something’s been off from the start.

Why did I so confidently declare that thing as the Black Tentacle?

Of course, if it were the Black Tentacle, such a presence wouldn’t be strange, but how could I immediately recall and be certain of something I’ve never seen before?

“Wh-what’s going on? I can almost feel what that eye is thinking and feeling.”

It wasn’t just me. Liche, standing beside me, felt the same.

This is absurd.

But soon, an answer naturally arose in my mind.

That’s right. We are now reading the Black Tentacle’s mind.

“Is this really…? No, more importantly, if the Black Tentacle were reading our minds, that would make sense, but us reading its mind?”

Why not? Hiding one’s thoughts is something only done by those who have at least a minimal sense of caution. Do you know anyone who changes clothes because they’re afraid of ants peeking? To the Black Tentacle, we are less than ants.

I couldn’t tell if these were my own thoughts or if the Black Tentacle was speaking directly into my mind.

What difference does it make? Distinguishing self from other is our way, not the Black Tentacle’s.

I stopped thinking deeply, feeling a headache coming on from the thoughts rising in my mind. This isn’t a way of thinking an ordinary person can handle.

“It called us here?”

Yes. To be precise, the Black Tentacle sensed the gate opening and came, pulling us into itself.

The method of communication with the Black Tentacle was… peculiar.

It wasn’t a normal conversation. Just by harboring a question in my mind, the answer naturally arose in my thoughts.

“…Then why did it call us here?”

The answer soon came to me.

To vent its anger.

“What?”

The gate is trying to return the areas the Black Tentacle brought from other dimensions to restore this dimension. Such attempts will inevitably cause irreparable damage to this dimension. When that happens, this dimension will be torn apart, and we too will face destruction.

“Wait. Explain more!”

The Black Tentacle has been observing humans for a long time by our standards. In the dimension where the Black Tentacle exists, there were no life forms like humans, so it found great interest in us and observed us. However, that observation came to an end today because we reopened the gate. The Black Tentacle is annoyed that we forcibly ended its observation, and it intends to vent its anger before we die.

“You mean this dimension will be destroyed…?”

Yes.

Ironically, the Black Tentacle’s strange method of communication made me certain of this fact.

It wasn’t just telepathy—it conveyed thoughts and emotions so completely that I was certain there wasn’t a shred of falsehood in what I read from the Black Tentacle’s mind.

Liche and the ghost, having also read the Black Tentacle’s thoughts, looked equally pale.

“Th-that can’t be. That can’t be! I never intended to destroy this world…!”

I could feel the Black Tentacle’s irritation at the ghost’s words.

Silence. I deny your speech.

In an instant, the ghost’s mouth disappeared.

The reason the ghost’s mouth disappeared became clear as soon as I wondered about it.

The Black Tentacle devoured the concept of the ghost’s mouth.

The Black Tentacle could even do something like that….

The ghost frantically felt around where its mouth had been, but there was no way it could return once taken by the Black Tentacle.

Seeing this, I realized the Black Tentacle was deeply angry with the ghost.

The ghost’s foolish actions had ruined the world the Black Tentacle had observed for thousands of years. Its anger wouldn’t subside until it had vented for as long as it had spent in this world.

“Ugh…! Ugh…!”

The ghost, realizing this too, flailed desperately, but it was no use.

“Self-harm. I harm my own body.”

Crack.

Snap.

The ghost’s limbs twisted in bizarre ways, and its body began to sink into the darkness.

The mouth the Black Tentacle had taken from the ghost now hung beneath its massive eye in the sky.

“Immortality. I deny my death.”

“Unrest. I deny my peace.”

“No rest. I deny my rest.”

“Sleeplessness, hunger, thirst. I will never sleep, and I will forever hunger and thirst.”

The mouth the Black Tentacle had taken from the ghost continued to strip away its life.

Yet, the ghost couldn’t even put up a decent resistance.

As it was being sucked in, it desperately reached out to us, pleading for its life, but before it could fully extend its hand, its body was swallowed by the darkness.

In that moment, I realized the ghost would be preserved in a state of neither life nor death for thousands of years, suffering so much that it would wish for death.

Clatter.

All that remained where the ghost had been sucked in was a blood-stained wooden clock.

For a human who once controlled a nation and sought to eradicate all other races, it was a pitifully miserable and hollow end.

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