"Shit! I… I'm dead."
Eren was about to get up but found out that his body had been frozen.
"Erni… Ereni… can you hear me?
Are you alright? What happened? What are you pointing at?"
A familiar sound in Eren's ears. He blinked once as he thought all his thoughts through. When he looked again, the dragon's head was nowhere to be found. The screeches of wraiths also vanished.
Even though he did not want to, he kept searching for the same dragon head and wraiths. However, it turned out his neck was stiff and his headache was agitated because of his futile attempts to move it.
"Erni… take it easy. How are you feeling?"
'This is… Reen!'
Eren recognized Reen right away. Instead of turning his head around, he adjusted his gaze and saw that she was staring back at him with worry written all over his face.
Since her mana core had been sealed, it would take efforts from her end to shift forth and back between her slime form and human form. So she had maintained her human form to take care of Eren during the time he was unconscious.
"Where are we? I feel like I had a lifetime's worth of horrible dreams."
He responded with slight difficulty in raising his voice to audible levels.
"That's it... we are safe for the time being. How are you feeling?"
Reen didn't want to dissuade him from waking up by telling him they were still in Purgatory. So she gave a vague answer and asked for his well-being.
"Hm? Well.. my… My head hurts. And my body… it feels like it had been collided with and wrecked by the biggest and worst Earth Sudae boar.
"Where are those damn wraiths? And where is…"
"Erni, what are you thinking? It must be a dream. There are no wraiths here."
Reen took Eren's hand in her hand and caressed it. Only then did Eren try to look around again by getting up slowly.
He sat straight and found out that he had been sleeping on a simple-looking bed. He looked around and found out that he was in a large and spacious room with a ceiling as high as 10 meters. There was almost no one in the room beside the bed.
Reen was sitting beside Eren's bed on a chair that looked worn out. She had changed clothes and was now wearing a white top and light green pants.
There were no windows or doors visible in the room. Only a faint light emanated from the teleportation array's runic symbols.
"Shit… we are still in Purgatory aren't we?"
Eren asked with a grim expression on his face. He was half expecting that everything he had seen in the dream was just that– a dream. But reality struck him after he woke up and made him go back to sleep again. Almost.
Eren felt his bones creaking and his muscles aching as he tried to sit up. He looked down and observed his body. And for a second, he thought that he was looking at someone else's.
His skin had turned paler. His legs seemed longer. He just felt different than before. He used his mana sense on himself and couldn't believe the feedback he received.
'Wait a minute…'
Eren looked at Reen and had an idea. He closed his eyes and used his mental connection with Reen to see himself with her eyes. He saw a young man in his early twenties naked from the waist up. He only had white pants from the waist down and they looked afresh like they had just been changed.
This young man had sharp facial features. He had voluminous white hair that had grown to his shoulder length. He had slanty eyes with light red irises. His relatively small nose and his V-shaped jawline added to his charm. Plus, he had a sort of otherworldly vibes around him.
"This… this is me? How?"
Eren closed his eyes and re-examined the status of his body. He could tell that he was not using his body alteration innate spell. That meant this was his natural state. Or more like another natural state had been added to his previous "normal" state.
Eren activated his mana core and felt the Ace rank mana circulating in his mana circuits. He used his transformation skill to turn into his natural state and found that it had also changed a bit.
His shoulder-length. Jet black hair now had a lustrous shine. His green irises looked to have taken on a darker shade. The rest of his features remained the same. But he looked more mature now.
Additionally, this state also maintained Eren's enhanced stature. He looked to be about 6 feet now. Coincidently, his normal height was now similar to the alias he was used to using– Ronny.
Eren felt like he had not eaten in months and was starving. The new appearance also raised another doubt in Eren's mind. He asked his beast companion to confirm:
"Reen, how long have I been out?"
Reen pressed her lips against each other as her eyes became moist.
"At least six months. Maybe more. I… I stopped counting after some time. You were out for so long, I thought you'd never…"
Eren raised his eyebrows again. He couldn't say he wasn't surprised. But it also made sense to him after checking up on his condition.
"Stop…. Stop. I'm fine now. And perfectly alright. You don't need to worry.
How did I survive so long without food though? And wait… Purgatory! Did it get closed?"
Eren asked with some nervousness. Reen replied shortly:
"Sage Eliza told me that you were kind of in the state of epiphany. So your body didn't need food to sustain itself.
She also predicted the time you would need to wake up. So she turned this room into a time chamber and adjusted the dilation of time accordingly. So that you won't miss out on your schedule. There are a few hours left before Purgatory closes."
'She didn't want me wasting HER time.'
Eren thought to himself and tried to get up. His muscles had been atrophied. But it only took him a few minutes to get the situation back to normal. He could still access his ID storage.
Eren took out his choice of clothes. He was about to wear them when he realized they no longer fit him properly.
'Heh! Bye-bye shorty Eren Idril.'
Eren whistled and said to himself. Then he threw his short clothes on the ground. For the time being, he was okay only wearing his pants and getting accustomed to his taller stature. He would wear clothes that were suitable for his alias later on.
AN: The illustration of Eren's white-haired appearance will be uploaded on Insta and VEH Discord soon.
