Port Exploration

Tulu hummed happily as she explored the streets of the port city. After devastating everything in her path to the ocean as if the embodiment of some calamitous natural disaster, Tulu managed to reach her first stop in her journey. From here, Tulu needed to cross the ocean, but she decided to kill some time by exploring first, much to the dismay of the leaders of her current location.

Heavy footsteps followed Tulu as armed men ran around subduing troublemakers. Most of these men stayed out of sight, but on occasion, just a brief glimpse of these men appeared. It made sense that these men wished to prevent a repeat of previous incidents with troublemakers and stay out of Tulu’s way for a similar reason of previous incidents.

Fortunately, Tulu seemed to not mind the occasional ruckus as she looked around the city, wandering wherever her whims happened to take her. While some shopkeepers complained about her taking things without paying, those shopkeepers were swiftly silenced by frantic men in uniform. To these men that knew about the past incidents, keeping Tulu happy was more important than money.

Eventually, Tulu made her way to the back alleys where she saw some black, shiny, skittering objects. With a smile, Tulu crouched down and greeted the six legged creatures, “Oh, you guys exist in this world too. A very formidable foe indeed. You guys survive really well. I look forward to exterminating your kind here too!”

Whether or not the creatures understood Tulu, they quickly scattered, running into various crevices as Tulu watched with a grin. After remaining still for a little, Tulu jumped up with a “Hup!”, twirled, and posed with her hands held behind her back.

“I am looking forward to playing more with this world now. Those little things are always super hard to get rid of. So exciting!”

Tulu gave a cheerful, slightly childish smile before continuing to skip onwards through the alleyway. Although she clearly had no idea of the layout of the back alleys, she moved without a hint of hesitation. Even when she found a wall blocking her path, she simply went and waved away the wall. That is to say, with a simple wave of her hand as if shooing away an annoying person, a massive chunk of the city disappeared with the wall, but Tulu seemed fine with the outcome.

After a few steps though, Tulu seemed confused as she looked at the empty crater. Tilting her head, Tulu mused aloud, “Strange, I thought there was more of the city here. I wonder what happened?”

Their feelings aside, nobody dared speak up and inform Tulu of what happened. There were some cries of pain that could be heard and some screaming, but all things considered, the amount of damage was still at a relatively low level. A few blocks of the city going missing and a few casualties was still a major improvement compared to the entire region disappearing. All that those watching could do was watch on, unable to act.

Tulu looked around as she tilted her head this way and that, seemingly indecisive as to her next action. That changed quickly though as Tulu soon went, “Ah well, probably nothing important. More importantly, I heard them say that there was a dessert shop somewhere over here.”

Those words caused the men to pale as they started frantically speaking into various devices. What might they have been near-shouting? Things like, “Requisition any building possible in this location and hire some—any patissier you can find! We can’t let her be disappointed!” were thrown about in these rather one-sided conversations.

Meanwhile, Tulu simple continued on in a relatively arbitrary direction, looking for this dessert shop she heard about. What was the name of the shop? Tulu couldn’t be bothered to remember such small details. All that mattered was that she received her desserts. Smiling, Tulu seemed to drool just slightly as she sung a strange, slightly off tune, off-kilter song about delicious food.

“Oh little twin grapes,

Plucked from the melon and made agape,

How you squish so sweetly,

Accompanied by this thick red tea,

I guess you can no longer see,

Oh do I love this strawberry jam,

Happy eating like delicious ham,

Little white toothpicks for my steak,

Put you in the oven just to bake~!”

That strange song filled the air as Tulu cheerfully proceeded towards her believed destination. Of course, needless to say, the destination no longer existed, so a chaotic search for a replacement was underway. Tulu being herself didn’t really care if she ended up at her original destination or simply something similar.

After many minutes of searching, Tulu sniffed the air as if having smelled something interesting. Following the sweet scent, Tulu ended up at a building with the name “Gianna’s” hastily painted onto the side. The inside of the building looked like someone had hastily tore apart the insides and rebuilt it just as hastily. As Tulu entered the building, a patissier greeted Tulu with a somewhat awkward smile.

“Welcome, Miss Tulu. I am honored by your visit. What would you like to try today? I will do my utmost to accommodate any requests you may have.”

“Oh? Then I’ll have everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yeppers~! I want to try everything you have. I’m looking forward to it!”

With that, Tulu happily found herself a seat and plopped herself down, humming as she waited. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice the mistakes or abnormalities, but even so, the patissier seemed to sweat in panic as he looked at the kitchen and the ingredients—rather, the lack of ingredients. While there were some items on display, they were all brought in from other shops.

Fortunately, having expected this possibility, trucks of ingredients and even more desserts from various stores began arriving moments later. Several men dressed as waiters hopped out of a truck and began grabbing the premade desserts and brought them to Tulu.

Tulu happily chowed down on the cakes, crepes, and other desserts offered to her. Money was a minor matter at this point given the proof of her ability to cause a calamity from simple absent-mindedness. Those watching couldn’t even imagine what might happen if Tulu actively tried to destroy the city. Even as the men on site tried to appease Tulu by offering her sweets, elsewhere, uniformed troops ran around evacuating as many citizens as possible.

Of course, some citizens simply couldn’t be evacuated for one reason or another, but given the potential disaster, the soldiers simply treated those as a necessary sacrifice. Indeed, Tulu was treated as a malevolent god demanding sacrifices.

No matter how hurriedly they worked; however, transportation took time. As such, Tulu ended up trying some of the on-site patissier’s desserts. Upon tasting the fresh desserts, Tulu paused and tilted her head as if confused.

“Hey, Mister. These cakes taste different.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Hmmm...”

Tulu got up and walked up to the patissier, sniffing him before licking him. “Mmm. I thought so. These cakes taste like you. I’ve decided, I like how you taste. Make more.”

Shaking, the patissier nodded furiously and rushed into the kitchen. Meanwhile, Tulu returned to the table and examined her offerings, taking a bite here and a bite there. “Mmm... As I thought, most of these don’t taste like him. I wonder why?”

Tulu lazed about, idly snacking on the desserts, sometimes dropping a dessert through her eye. Completely treating the shop as her own house, Tulu allowed herself to act quite

slovenly to the point where she kicked off her sandals as she laid on the table.

Completely relaxed, Tulu opened her mouth and closed her eyes when the waiter brought her freshly baked treats. Of course, even if she looked completely unguarded, none of the men in uniform even bothered attacking—they knew quite well that no amount of firepower at their disposal was enough.

The acting waiter did seem to consider attacking for a moment, but seemed to think better of it and instead cautiously cut up the dessert and fed Tulu the pieces. These random whims of Tulu continued until night fell and even after night fell, Tulu continued to demand more sweets—it seemed that she truly intended to eat everything.

It was many hours into the next day that the patissier finally collapsed of exhaustion. After all, he had been baking food almost non-stop without any time to properly rest, much less sleep.

“Eh? Mister collapsed?”

Tulu seemed genuinely shocked at the news of her dessert maker’s collapse. Jumping off the table, Tulu made her way to the kitchen, where several men were attempting to move the fainted patissier to a more suitable location. Ignoring those men, Tulu walked over to the patissier’s body and frowned.

“You did a good job, Mister. I’m a bit sad that I didn’t get to eat everything, but I really do love your taste, so I think I’ll keep you.”

With those words, Tulu grabbed the patissier and shoved him into her eye. Inexplicably, the patissier managed to fit through her eye despite the impossibility of doing so. Tulu then smiled as she looked around.

“I guess it is about time to cross the sea.”

With that comment, Tulu set off in the approximate direction of the docks. All things considered, the men considered their mission a relative success so far. If they could just keep it up, soon Tulu would be another country’s problem for the time being.

Less than an hour later, Tulu arrived at the docks where she was quickly ushered into a large passenger ship. While the ship was mostly empty compared to the proper capacity, there was just enough to keep Tulu hopefully occupied for the duration of the trip.

Hopefully.