Kuromi was forcibly woken up by a clamor comparable to a morning rush at a vegetable market.
"So noisy... Can't a person get some sleep..."
She mumbled drowsily, trying hard to lift her hand to rub her eyes, but found her arms heavy and unresponsive.
It took a great deal of effort for her to barely lift her eyelids, which felt as heavy as a thousand catties.
Then, she froze.
What met her eyes was not the familiar ceiling, but a pitch-black universe dotted with countless stars.
"...Am I still asleep?" She subconsciously tried to pinch herself, only to find she couldn't even manage that simple action.
Her brain began to turn, grinding like rusty gears.
Space? How am I in space?
She struggled to turn her rigid "gaze"—if it could be called a gaze—towards the source of the noise.
That single glance nearly scared the soul right out of her.
She saw dense clusters of starships, large and small, of various designs, arranged in a tight encirclement, all aimed in her direction.
The clamor seemed to be a mix of the roar of these starships' engines and the hum produced when energy was being charged.
"What's going on... On-site observation of a space war? My dream is quite grand..."
While Kuromi was still stunned, she saw blinding light suddenly flare up from the muzzles of those starships!
The next instant, countless energy beams poured down like a storm, accurately blasting her... well, "body"?
The anticipated intense pain did not arrive.
Rather than pain, it felt more like being flicked by countless mischievous children using rubber bands—dense, slightly annoying, but certainly not harmful.
The energy beams exploded "on her," turning into glittering light fragments that scattered everywhere, which was actually quite beautiful.
"This dream... the texture is strange? Touch simulation failure?" She felt baffled, even tempted to laugh.
What was this? A cosmic massage?
She tried to look down to see her current state, but found the movement extremely difficult.
She could only rely on feeling—she seemed, perhaps, maybe... extremely vast?
The seemingly majestic starships felt, to her perception, like a swarm of bees buzzing around an elephant.
The corner of her eye seemed to catch sight of several... indistinct, seemingly black, arm-like objects of unknown material quietly suspended on either side of her body.
"What have I... turned into? A space monster?" Kuromi's confusion index continued to soar.
Just as she was trying hard to figure out the situation, a sense of crisis stemming from instinct suddenly seized her!
It was millions of times more intense than the previous "massage rain"!
Almost involuntarily, her "consciousness" drove some kind of power.
A concentrated purple energy wave carrying an aura of destruction abruptly shot out from a certain part of her "body," meeting the source of the fatal threat—a barely noticeable silver light against the cosmic backdrop.
However, her seemingly unrivaled counterattack was like paper mache before that silver light.
The silver light—now visible as what looked like an ancient, unadorned dagger—effortlessly sliced through the purple energy wave she emitted, like a hot knife cutting through cold butter!
Its momentum remained completely undiminished!
"What?!" Kuromi's "consciousness" was filled with disbelief.
The silver light rapidly magnified in her "vision," and then accurately pierced the core location of her "body."
"Hiss—"
An intense pain, as if her soul was being violently ripped apart, instantly erupted, far surpassing all her previous understanding of "pain."
"Ugh ah—!"
Darkness surged like a tide, instantly swallowing all her senses... "Hah—!"
Kuromi abruptly sat up, the movement so large she almost strained her back—if she had a back right now.
She gasped heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Subconsciously, she raised her hand to pat her chest, feeling the warm, soft touch of human flesh and the friction of delicate fabric.
Cold sweat slid down her temples, bringing a chilling sensation.
"I... I was... killed just now?" she muttered, her voice trembling with the shock of surviving a disaster.
The voice was cool and carried a hint of softness, completely unlike the voice she remembered as her own.
She finally recovered completely from the overly realistic "nightmare" and began to look around.
Blankness.
Boundless, pure white.
There was no up or down, no cardinal directions, and she couldn't even feel gravity, yet she was standing steadily upon this expanse of blankness.
"Where is this now? The afterlife? Or... another dream?" Full of doubt, she stood up, her movements hesitant because the feeling of this body was still unfamiliar.
She lowered her head and looked at her hands.
They were extremely beautiful hands.
Fair, slender, with distinct knuckles and neatly trimmed, rounded nails.
But these were definitely not her hands!
She remembered her hands were constantly... uh, constantly doing what?
She couldn't remember, but they definitely didn't look like the pampered, delicate hands of a young lady who had never done manual labor.
Her gaze continued downward.
She was wearing a complexly designed, strangely textured, off-the-shoulder Lolita dress, primarily in mysterious and deep black and purple, with layers of lace and ribbon outlining a slender waist.
A section of her leg revealed beneath the skirt had graceful lines.
The front of the dress was adorned with several small, delicate skull pendants, which, far from looking terrifying, added a touch of eerie cuteness.
She raised her hand and felt the top of her head. It was an enormous witchs hat, also in black and purple hues, with a soft, drooping brim, decorated with several seemingly eternally blooming, faintly glowing purple flowers. The petals felt delicate and real.
She reached out and picked up a strand of hair hanging down to her chest—it was an ash-white color, like a blend of moonlight and first snow, smooth as satin, and reached her waist.
"I... what exactly is this..." Kuromi was utterly dumbfounded.
This outfit, this hair, this voice... she was completely a stranger!
Tentatively, she spoke again, her voice filled with uncertainty: "Is anyone here? Where... is this?"
The instant her voice faded, as if responding to her call, a massive, translucent panel emitting a soft white glow silently materialized right in front of her, without any warning.
"Woah!" Kuromi jumped back a small step in fright, scrambling to regain her balance.
The text on the panel consisted of strange symbols she had never seen before, yet she was strangely able to understand their meaning:
[Welcome, esteemed existence.]
The font was elegant and dignified, conveying a non-human sense of detachment.
Detected Rupert III. Automatic Praise Mode activated:
Rupert III, unmatched in the world!
Irontomb, supremely intelligent!
Madam Herta, stunningly beautiful!