The Sentinel Used to Be a Blue-Ringed Octopus

Sweet, cunning, love-struck S-rank Sentinel top x overworked, motherly Instructor Guide bottom

Blue-ringed octopus x pale green hairstreak butterfly, Lovecraftian horror / Sentinel-Guide / younger love interest raised from childhood

[The blue-ringed octopus I raised is a nonhuman creature. He’s adorably mischievous, often makes my sanity drop, and has a mouthful of big rice-like teeth as sharp as juicer blades.

Butterflies like sticking to glass. He moved into my dorm, and from then on my butterfly loved perching on that aquarium.]

-

Hang Zhishu has accepted that he’ll never advance beyond the early stages of A-rank. After graduating from his master’s program, he chooses to stay on as a Guide instructor.

As long as nothing happens that could blow up the entire district, he can consider himself settled into a comfortable desk job in the rear, ready to retire early. For an ordinary A-rank Guide with no powerful family backing him, it couldn’t be a safer, steadier choice.

Until, shortly before graduation, he picks up a C-rank blue-ringed octopus during a mission.

The poor little fish has no one to rely on and looks utterly pitiful. Its deadly poison could kill a row of A-ranks, and it’s rated five stars for danger. It must be strictly contained, with protective gloves and a restraint collar, to keep the people around it safe.

Whoever picks up the octopus is responsible for it, so it ends up moving into the instructor dorm he’s just been assigned.

That’s not so bad, either, Hang Zhishu thinks. If he lived alone, he’d be too lazy to cook.

He doesn’t know that the moment an ancient god’s octopus chose him, the indescribable shadows had already begun seeping, little by little, into his everyday life.

-

Ke Xilan is reborn on the day the villainous organization kills the tool it no longer needs.

The S-rank experimental assassin, driven mad by contamination from the experiments, opens his eyes and finds himself back in the alley behind a convenience store in a small city, at age seventeen. Curled up in a cardboard box, he locks eyes with a Guide from the capital who has come to investigate a case.

The man in the white shirt is like moonlight spilling into the dark alley. He pulls out a special investigation warrant, all bright and fresh: "Hello. There’s been a series of poisonings in this neighborhood. Please come with me and cooperate with the investigation."

The octopus in the box stares at him, stunned. He wants to say, Don’t you recognize me? I trapped the military academy students under your command. You were with the military team that surrounded me at the final sweep. I poisoned twenty A-ranks and charged at you, then stabbed myself through the heart with your dagger.

I know you. Your name is Hang Zhishu, and you’re a military academy instructor.

I’ve always wondered: if I’d gone with you the day we first met, instead of being taken away and made into an experimental subject, would everything have turned out differently?

[Little Scenes]

1,

At the second semester’s opening-level assessment, everyone’s expressions shift from calm to stunned as they watch his rank number shoot all the way up to A.

Fellow instructor: !!! What have you been giving him?

Hang Zhishu: Another possibility is that I picked up a ghost.

2,

A certain blue-ringed octopus: (answers the phone) Hiii, hellooo! ... Who are you saying is an ancient god’s anomaly? Me? You’ve got the wrong guy! (hangs up, grinning) (turns around) (eyes sparkling) Instructor, Instructor, the mission payment came through! Let’s go eat king crab tomorrow!

The same octopus: (hanging upside down on a single-seat sofa) (buries his face in a fluffy octopus plushie) (murmurs darkly) (grinds his beak) Nobody’s taking away my adorable, laid-back life of three dishes and soup with my caretaker...

The caretaker in the kitchen: Xixi, come eat!

-

Lovecraftian horror / Sentinel-Guide / campus / supernatural powers / combat / ensemble with multiple couples

Raising a C-rank Sentinel into an S-rank regional chief

Beneath the extreme northern seas, an ancient god lies buried.

The spirit forms and supernatural abilities of Sentinels and Guides are the indescribable ones’ [Gifts].

Part of a series / worldbuilding installment

The octopus in Couple 1 is based on a tiny, 10 cm specimen. His human form is 5 cm shorter than Couple 0’s (175/180 cm).

Couple 1’s top is genuinely nonhuman and doesn’t realize it. He acts sweet while leveling up in the early stages, going from C-rank back to S-rank.

The early story focuses on campus life, tackling small side missions and gathering clues for the main plot. The Lovecraftian ancient gods are the cause of the Sentinel-Guide system, revealed later.

The specific ancient gods aren’t based on any particular beings from the original Cthulhu Mythos.

Guides of any gender can bear children, a result of contamination from the Mother of Fertility. Side couples include pregnancy and male pregnancy. (In conjunction with the above, the Mother of Fertility here is not the Mother of the Thousand Young.)

One-on-one main pairing, ensemble story with multiple couples. Supporting characters are developed, too. The original option to choose a point-of-view has been removed. There are more than just the two protagonists’ perspectives, and the secondary couples get a lot of focus in the early and middle parts, so please keep that in mind.

Both protagonists are deliberately ordinary, and neither stands out in a crowd in the early and middle parts. They take their time building and enjoying everyday life.

The novel was originally titled "Sea Moon, Floating Foam".

Floating foam: bubbles on the surface of the water.

*Do not try to raise dangerous species.

-

Upcoming: "Reborn as a Peacock’s Pet Again", the second Lovecraftian Sentinel-Guide novel in the same world

Main couple: [Arrogant, obsessive, pleasure-loving young beauty Peacock Wisdom King top x timid but ruthless, melancholy European owl assassin bottom]

An ancient god in Western dress smiles beneath the gauzy curtains and says, "I am a wicked bone that broke away from His body."

-

Fu Pian’s life is counting down. In his second year undercover at the military academy, he’s an experimental assassin who has endured years of contamination.

He hides his condition to keep the organization from noticing and initiating his disposal process.

Experimental subjects rarely get the chance to live in the outside world for long, so he cherishes his current life. Until, while killing time at the freshman welcome desk, he sees the man who once made him pay for an undercover mission.

Back then, he infiltrated the Peacock family, posing as the legitimate young master’s illegitimate cousin. He spent every day with Fu Pingjia, officially as brothers but in reality as master and servant, putting up with endless bird-related abuse.

On the day he left, after resentment had built up for so long, he stabbed his employer.

At their first reunion, he’s certain the young master has come to take revenge.

He has no intention of wasting time on a punishment game, but he’s forced into it from the start.

You were the one who provoked me first, Fu Pingjia.

Old grudges and new grievances pile up. The owl Guide tosses aside his milk carton and starts drawing up a plan to use the peacock.

Peacocks are polygamous birds. Sentinels in the Peacock family have always had countless partners, both inside and outside marriage.

And thanks to their time together, he knows the young master’s one exclusive weakness.

The mighty bird Fu Pingjia needs to sleep while hugging something soft and warm: his A-Beibei.

And he, Fu Pian, top assassin Night Owl, is that A-Beibei.

No matter how the day goes, every night he’s held in the young master’s arms as he falls asleep.

He understands Fu Pingjia’s nature better than anyone.

He likes to toy with people and have fun.

Given another chance, he won’t repeat his old mistake and fall for the young master, who can’t resist showing off.

He won’t trust him again or pin any ridiculous hopes on him. He won’t treat someone born into a powerful family as a lifeline.

The young assassin who once dreamed of love and escaping the organization in the manor’s storage room was already dead before the night he fled the Peacock estate.

Just as Fu Pingjia’s interest in him reaches its peak, he pretends to have fallen for him, as if he’d forgotten the rejection and humiliation of the past. He takes the initiative and asks:

"Do you want to be with me?"

He sees a triumphant smile in the peacock’s beautiful eyes.

He lowers his gaze and smiles, hiding his expression as he faces the human-shaped medicine, the peacock Sentinel with the ultimate ability to purify contamination.

-

The owl laid a clutch of eggs in His bed.

A clutch of unhatched, unfertilized eggs.

His brother has the most interesting body in the world.

His feathers are soft and fluffy, like a big loaf of bread;

he loves food and can be coaxed with pretty little cakes;

he clearly loves it, yet stays wary of having his nape and back stroked;

he sighs and pushes His face away, complaining that laying eggs is exhausting.

He watches the Guide, now mortal, weak and fragrant, struggle to sit up and point at the eggs, pretending to sound cheerful.

"Want a fried egg?"

The God of Beauty, Lord of Light, the All-Seeing One, the God of Time,

finds this very novel.

So even after using this A-Beibei for a thousand years, He has no intention of replacing him.

He smiles and accepts every betrayal across every lifetime:

Fu Pian tears himself away from His body with a portion of His power, making Him fall from godhood;

Fu Pian joins forces with outsiders to suppress Him for hundreds of years;

Fu Pian goes to great lengths to get close to Him, his face flushed, saying shyly that he loves Him, then plunges a blade into His body the next second.

His beloved brother, the other half of Him that is rich in humanity.

He looks at Him with soft, melancholy eyes, strokes His cheek absentmindedly, and wears an expression humans call happiness when He praises the flavor of the cream.

He watches him, wonders about him, wants to ask him

whether love is a silver-tongued lie, one among a million falsehoods.

And He wants to ask why he sealed Him beneath Qixia Mountain.

-

Fu Pian’s plan goes smoothly. His ploy of playing the victim works, and he’s carried into the Peacock estate in Fu Pingjia’s arms.

He moves in as the young master’s only lover and starts scheming on behalf of the organization against the vast Peacock family, the South’s greatest supernatural force.

Meanwhile, in secret, the assassin gets rid of the ancient god’s contamination inside him. No longer controlled by the organization, which has been struggling to survive since it was surrounded by the authorities six years ago, he begins his real revenge.

There’s only one thing he fails to account for. The pampering and constant intimacy bring his birdlike Guide’s ovulation forward. His abdomen gradually swells, and he falls into uncontrollable agitation and anxiety.

He wants to be stroked... wants a mate.

He wants him.

-

The peacock’s plan goes smoothly, too. His silly little bird has returned to Him.

This owl is stubborn and not very bright, the same in every lifetime, always dying for reasons the god finds ridiculous.

The god’s sundial turns back for him again and again, reversing time and returning to when the world still held Him captive.

From the moment they were born from the same egg, he was destined to belong to Him.

Originally, nothing in this world mattered. Devouring him and merging with him again were inevitable, but before that, keeping him as a pet for amusement was nice, too.

Fu Pian has forgotten everything, including the source of His malice.

But the God of Time has infinite patience, waiting for him to tear off his disguise and reveal his sharp beak and claws once more.

He looks forward to holding him when that time comes, keeping him from breaking free, and saying:

"My beloved Ming Fei, surprised?"

-

Secondary couple: [Domineering, gloomy rich patron, River Styx jellyfish Dark Guide bottom x innocent, delicate college student White Tiger Sentinel top, forced into being a substitute]

At the end of the previous timeline, Zhong Chuoning, his black hair turned completely white, would rather die than sever their link and escape from him.

At sunset, a young man who dropped out of school is hurrying from a cafe to his next part-time job when a luxury car blocks his way and its passenger asks if he’d like to attend military school.

"I like your genes." At the end of the semester, his patron, with his gloomy phoenix eyes, grips his chin and forces his head up.

"Your summer homework is to get me pregnant before summer ends."

His gaze drifts unconsciously to the aphrodisiac on the table. He thinks that, really, they don’t need it.

At school, he worries about his patron’s advancing pregnancy, until a classmate points to an old photo on an instructor’s desk and cries out, "This senior looks so much like you."

Yan Liu is his patron, his sugar daddy, the person he sells himself to.

Only when the rift opens and that familiar figure appears above the military academy, surrounded by countless dead souls and wearing a veil of black gauze as broad as a jellyfish’s bell, does Zhong Chuo hear his other name.

"Lord of Xingjingfang, please stop."

As everyone watches in terror, he’s drawn into the black veil. His back hits a high, rounded belly, and he hears his patron laugh coldly in a fury:

"You’ve got a lot of nerve, not answering my calls."

The entire school goes on alert, but he alone knows why this powerful figure has come in person.

Beneath the black gauze is a restless pregnant belly, deprived of the nourishment of pheromones.

+++

-One-on-one, mutual love. No groveling after a breakup, but enough misunderstandings between them to circle the Earth three times.

There’s no sex during the fake-sibling period, and they aren’t on the same household register. The top knows the bottom is using a false identity. The cousin he impersonates never actually existed; he made use of an old affair from the previous generation.

-The main couple are each other’s first and only. They each have admirers, but only have feelings for each other.

Both are around 185 cm tall, with the top taller than the bottom.

-The top loves physical contact with the bottom. To him, the bottom is his pet bird, his bonded mate, his A-Beibei.

-The top is an Old One who once ruled the past and future. In both human and bird form, he is a god of beauty whose looks rank among the best on Earth. He usually tones down his appearance. He controls multiple domains, but is currently no longer a god. He was born on Earth, and his interests may not always align with humanity’s.

-The bottom has been in disguise for a long time. Early on, he looks ordinary and mildly handsome, but that isn’t his real face. His true face is that of a strikingly handsome European man, though he says the most timid things with it.

-The gods known to the ordinary world are archetypal forms derived by the ancient gods themselves for the sake of spreading their faith, such as the Peacock Wisdom King and the Great Mother.

-The Lovecraftian ancient gods in this world are the cause of the Sentinel-Guide system. See the previous novel in the same series, "The Sentinel Is a Blue-Ringed Octopus". The specific ancient gods aren’t based on any particular beings from the original Cthulhu Mythos.

Guides of any gender can bear children, a result of contamination from the Mother of Fertility. (In conjunction with the above, the Mother of Fertility here is not the Mother of the Thousand Young.)

-The main couple are birds and lay eggs; the secondary couple are human and have a child.

The secondary couple’s top is untouched, while the bottom isn’t. Before meeting the top, the bottom took the active role. In the previous timeline, the bottom forced the top into a relationship (the bottom was the aggressor), and there’s a pregnancy plot. In this timeline, they have a happy family.

-The top is a divine, beautiful young man loved by everyone, but could be an enemy of humanity. The secondary couple’s bottom is a domineering, abusive romance-novel tycoon who abducts and imprisons a young man, exploits his pheromones, and abuses him, but protects humanity.

Theme: How do you know it won’t work unless you try?