Apologies for the dey st week!

  Please also give me your thoughts on TSH in the ents, I'm looking for some feedback, whether its on flow, dire, pace, or anything else. Just be aware that the 5 chaps are already written so the ges caused by the feedback will take some time to be noticed.

  Mid Evening - Early Fall : The Forest of Giants | Temnota

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  - Eve Altera ~

  "Nnnghh..." Waking up with a groan as a lingeri-like pain flooded my body, I lethargically opened my eyes to see the blurry figure of a bck creature looming over me.

  But rather than panig, I just bnkly stared at it...

  Mindlessly ying there, feeling the impression of dull tree bark pressing into my back, a blend of blurry, unsorted memories slowly started resurfag, pying moments of my childhood, my mother, and the days I spent with my dad like an endless record before I was met with my iable demise.

  But as the movie progressed, I eventually made it to a memory of someone, a everything freeze.

  It was the moment I first met Evren, reag her blood-covered hand out to me as she held up the head of a huge dead monster.

  It was a moment I remembered like it was yesterday.

  However, this time, the moment I reached out my childish hand and touched hers, the rest of my memories rushed back like an untrolble tsunami, flooding my body with adrenaline and jolting me awake. "aaAAAHH!" Springing up to my feet, I instinctually lunged back from the bck creature before my vision finally sharpened and my panic mixed with fusion. -H..huh..?- Even as memories of the creature finally came bae, I felt a distinct, unfamiliar presence from it. "B..Bel..?"

  Her fastantly washed with worry. "Lady Eve! Be careful moving so much!"

  -What the hell..?- Watg her run up to me in a panic, my face ed with fusion. -Why does she have.. an aura..?-

  But as if I opehe floodgates, the moment I started asking questions, my mind was overtaken by them.

  Until eventually, everythiled on one.

  -How.. am I alive...-

  Uet the endless anabolic burn that filled my lungs before I lost sciousness, my instincts screamed at me to get a breath of oxygen, only for me to realize that the urge to breathe had vanished entirely. -W..what the hell...- Looking down at Bel as she tried to force me to sit down, I followed her guidance before progressively notig more and more anomalies about my own body.

  Using aura to look at my internal dition, I found that all the ans that previously filled my abdomen were missing, now repced by a massive mana core, while the rest of my body, from stomach to heart all looked pletely unfamiliar.

  It was unlike anything I could my head around. "Bel, what... What happeo me..?" Based ohing I knew, I should have died...

  But there I sat, alive and well as if the memories I had didn't belong to the body I possessed.

  "M-Master saved you..." Still a bit unsure herself, she spoke rather relutly. "By Earth's standards, she crippled you, but somehow, your reserve exploding saved you..."

  -W..what...- Attempting to break down what she said, it felt like I was trying to tra between nguages. "She.. shattered my reserve?" -But that 't be right...- Setting my hand on my stomach, I could clearly feel the mana surging from it.

  But sometimes reality defied logic.

  "I just used it as a catalyst to help you get to the stage of assion and reformed it."

  Hearing Evren's voice, I jolted, only to look over and see her walking around the tree trunk. "YOU DID WHAT?!"

  "It retty risky, but it wasn't something I had never done before." Finally reag me, she squatted down a her hand on my shoulder, closely iing me before staring into my eyes.

  Subsciously matg her gaze, I stared bato her void-like pupils only to get lost in them as if I were hypnotized.

  But the moment she blinked, snappi of it, a glimpse of light flickered in the void. -Huh..?-

  "Thank goodness... It seems like you're making a full recovery..." Ign my fused look, she leaned back with a warm smile while her voice was flooded with relief. "How are your memories? Are your thoughts still cloudy at all?"

  Still a bit unsure what to say, as if caught in a daze, I spoke softly. "They're still.. a little fuzzy..."

  Giving me a pleased nod, Evren finally sat down just in front of me. "If you reize that they're fuzzy, then that means they're not gohey should e back with time..."

  Feeling a sense of uanding ing from her voice, I subsciously found ease, giving my nerves a moment to breathe without me even realizing it. "Phew..."

  But Evren didn't let my mind have the privilege of fort. "So, as you may have noticed already, but your body has ged quite a bit."

  Snapping out of my own thoughts, I nodded. "Yeah.. I actually wao ask about that..."

  Already uanding that, she tinued without hesitation. "Your body now lives pletely off mana,"

  -pletely..?-

  "Unlike before, you ot sustain yourself with food or water alone, and if you run out of mana, your body will literally begin dying. I call it mana suffocation." Notig me ge, her smile widened with uanding. "You supplement your body's mana ption with a bit of food and liquid, especially if it's mana-infused, but you still need some mana at the base of everything, so don't g off spells if it empties your reserve."

  Unsure how to feel, I sat in sileh a flicted look on my face.

  "Haha, it's not all bad though. Now that you live entirely off mana, you o longer die from things like ck of oxygen, food, or water, and are extremely resistant to things like blood loss, most poisons, disease, and to aent, old age. However, you o remember that you aren't immortal. Just because you heal super fast doesn't mean you should tank hits you dodge." Reag her hand out without much thought, she swiftly pulled a shiny k of metal out of her iory before smming it down in front of me so I could see my refle. *Thunk*

  But, still trying to prehend everything she was expining, I wasn't ready for it. -W..what...- "WHAT THE HELL?!" It did more than catch me off guard.

  Ial pte in front of me, I found the refle of ahat looked no different from a younger version of Mother, something so unlike what I was used to that I didn't believe it was my refle. She was nothing short of the pinnacle of elvey and youthfulness, with long white hair that desded well below her waist, extra long, sharp ears, and skin of por that I only knew my Mother to have.

  But, uher, the refle before me was young, like a human woman iwenties. -Is that really.. me..?- It was like I had regressed fifty years.

  Now, I actually looked youhan Evren...

  "Unfamiliar, huh?" Smiling as if reminisg, she tilted her head to bathe in the nostalgia. "When I forced my body to asd like I did yours, I had to question if I regressed. It looked like I went from my fifties to being a youngin' again."

  -So this is what real assion is...- Feeling like a frog finally seeing the sky after sitting in a well, I wao scoff at my previous ignorance. -But...- "What do you mean by f yourself to asd?"

  Not quite uanding, she gave me an odd look. "Well, I did exactly what I did to you, just to myself."

  -Wait, what...- "What does that mean..?" Not sure whether I wao know the details, I looked at Bel.

  But she fervently shook her head at me, knowing what it was that Evre.

  Perhaps that was my warning... But it was too te.

  As she went on to expin how she ruptured her own reserve and carved out her own ans, I felt so sick I wao vomit.

  But even still, she spoke of the moment as if it were some fond memory, and while I wasn't sure why.. I immediately regretted questioning it when I asked about it.

  "Well, after that moment, I didn't have to worry about my guts spilling out whenever my stomach got sshed. Plus, after a while, the extra spa my abdomen was filled with muscle, and that came with its own bes."

  Feeling the colressively drain from my face as I watched her so casually speak about horrors I couldn't fathom, my image of how she lived while adventuring in the System darkeo a point of unreizability.

  Much like a child realizing her hero wasn't as invincible as her tales foretold, it made me feel an almost unending powerlessness, uainty, and doubt. -Just.. what kind of life did she have to live to speak about nearly getting cut in half like a minor invenience...-

  However, after tinuing to talk about it, it only became more and more clear that it wasn't anything I would ever be able to my head around...

  And while the version of her I idolized as a child was indeed far from invincible, I really had to question if her current self wasn't.

  Walking up to the side of a grotesque, spine-covered drake with hide so thick my stro spells wouldn't even tickle it, I watched Evren casually sink her fingers into one of its massive teeth before ripping it out and tossing it to me.

  *Pat* It was a material I wouldn't have believed existed if I hadn't seen it, a bone many times strohan all but the stro mythrils I knew of.

  But while I stared at it with a look of disbelief, I couldn't even begin to imagine how much I would e to question the idea of impossibility.

  And how my view of reality would because of it...

  -----

  - Bel ~

  "Hey Bel,"

  Hearing Master's voie from ihe drake's massive mouth, I immediately stopped what I was doing and looked up.

  "Go give Eve a hand real quick."

  Nodding without a moment of hesitation, I let go of the short, white bde in my mouth before setting my paw on it and carefully moving it into my iory. *Vwoop*

  Watg a clump of metal-like grass disappear with it, I felt a chill pass down my spine. -Geez, that feels so sketchy...-

  Finally turning my attention away from it, I made my way around the drake's ridiculously oversized horn before hopping up into a huge gash in its stomach, propped open by a series e poles, and making my way into its abdomen.

  About twenty minutes ago, Evren had asked Eve to go into the drake's abdominal cavity to retrieve its more nutrient-dense ans, such as the liver a without really saying why, likely just trying to get Eve's mind out of the whirlwind it was caught in.

  But while she went into it with a smile, that turned out to not be as easy of a task as anticipated.

  *Spsh-Spsh* "Ah, Bel..." Turning around pletely drenched in blood while holding an orb of light magic, Eve gave me a forced smile. "Did Evren send you in?"

  Notig her unease, I spoke a bit more softly. "I wasn't being ao Master, so I thought I'd see if you could use a hand."

  "Ah..." Letting out a heavy breath, her gaze fell to the floor. "I actually could, but I don't know if it's something you really help with..."

  -What could that be?- Finding a curious sway in my step, I tinued up to her side in the cave-like space. "What's up?"

  "Well..." Looking around the seemingly empty space, she brightened up her light magic. "Typically, the way you find the nutrient-dense ans is by which are darker, but..." Unlike what she was used to, it wasn't just the nutrient-dense ans that were dark.

  Ihe drake, everything was bck.

  "I also tried to use analysis magi some things, but.. they've all given me readings I 't uand..."

  -Is that so...- Quickly shifting to night vision, I took a moment to look around before digging my cws into the wall of flesh o us, and climbing up to an exposed an. -It looks like these are the iines so this could be something...-

  Pulling my head away from the wall for a moment, I pulled my knife from my iory before catg it in my mouth and sshing the an. *Vwoop-Tink* *Fwip-Spt*

  As my face was showered with blood, my mind raced to analyze the texture of the meat. -A lot of blood... That's a good sign...-

  Sshing it a few more times, carving out the piece of flesh entirely, I caught it with my paw before immediately putting it in my iory.

  But rather than being beled as an an, like I was hoping, it was just beled as 'Miseous Flesh'. -Well.. I guess Eve would have figured it out already if it was that easy...-

  However, as I tapped expand on the description, I resented with a breakdown of the various things ihe piece of flesh by pert. Vitamins, abundant elements, and even pounds.

  To the eyes of a normal being, it was likely information that meant nothing, but quite a number of the elements and pounds in the list were things I knew of, and through them, I could infer what the an was used for.

  Subsciously smiling, I looked back down at Eve. "I think this is something simir to the liver!" Releasing my grip on the wall, I fell down to the blood-coated ground with a spsh. "At the very least, it has a ton of good stuff in it so it's wrabbing. I'll chee other things while you grab it."

  Joyfully trotting over to the other side of the space, I slipped between several ans I didn't reize with an almost dog-like wag in my tail and got to work.

  To most, it was likely quite grueling work, but after essentially disseg the creature from the inside for a while, I felt a rush I had never felt before.

  It was joy. An endless, pure excitement.

  By the time Eve and I finished and made our way outside, it had simply ed me. "Master! Master!" Running out of the drake's abdomen with a happy trot, I made my to Evren's side before pressing myself int. "Is this the kind of stuff you were looking for?"

  *Beep* Transfering her a few pieces of flesh from my iory, she immediately pulled them out before redug them to mush in her hand. "Oh? Did these really e out of the drake?" Iing them a bit more closely for a moment, she turo me with a smile before reag down and rubbing my head. "Good job!"

  -Hehe...- As a robot, something like joy wasn't something I was supposed to be able to fathom.

  But at that moment, I felt euphoria, unlike anything a puter could replicate.

  Unfortunately, that was just me though. "Now, Eve, e grab your dinner." *Vwoop* Pulling out a much rger k of meat I had given her, Master da in front of her with an oddly smug smile.

  And Eve, well.. her expression was grim.

  So much so, I wao ugh.

  "Haha," *Pat* Aggressively patting me, Master let out a pyful chuckle. "Don't think yetting away scot-free either."

  -Huh?- "What do you-" *Spt* Before I could even finish, a clump of flesh suddenly appeared in my mouth, instantly redug to mush before sinking into the sea of metal pieces posing my throat. -E..Ew...-

  What a truly unpleasant moment that was...

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