The frightening, swollen black veins beneath Elenor's skin slowly began to fade from view. Yet they were still there—now fully integrated with her body, having become inseparable parts of her. Only around her left wrist, near the watch itself, were a few veins still slightly swollen. Even then, their color was nearly impossible to distinguish unless one looked very closely; to an outside observer, they appeared no different from ordinary veins.
At that moment, the watch on Elenor's wrist vibrated gently.
[Initiating bodily scan…]
Dim yet noticeable green lights spread from the veins in her wrist throughout her entire body. During the scan, red warning lights flashed at certain points across her body.
[Harmful substances detected!]
[Initiating body purification process…]
The micro-cables within her body sprang into frantic motion. The runes etched along them glowed brightly, emitting waves at specific frequencies. Autonomous biomechanical modules deployed from within the cables, waging war against every impurity inside her body. Harmful microbes, viruses, accumulated chemicals, and radioactive cells were isolated one by one and expelled. Black, sticky fluids seeped from Elenor's pores, spilling onto the floor and soaking into her sweat-drenched pajamas.
[Generating missing cells…]
[Repairing damaged cells…]
Elenor's body had become a fully operational technological medical center. The watch automatically took every step necessary to improve her biological condition; however, it was still only a device, and it required raw materials.
[Iron deficiency detected. Please consume required nutrients!]
[Vitamin C deficiency detected. Please consume required nutrients!]
Since the moment the watch had been placed on her wrist, its screen had not gone dark for even a single second. It continuously analyzed, repaired, cleansed, and measured the limits of her body. After receiving no response for an extended period, the device conducted a deeper examination of Elenor's condition.
[User status: Unconscious.]
[Analysis complete! Cause of unconsciousness determined!]
[Result: Loss of consciousness due to extreme pain.]
[User's unconscious state determined to be involuntary…]
[Initiating awakening procedure.]
A brief, faint spark discharged from Elenor's watch. With this small electrical shock, her entire body jolted simultaneously. Elenor suddenly jerked upright, as if awakening from a nightmare. Her chest heaved rapidly as she began coughing violently.
"ÖHM! ÖHM! ÖHM ÖHM!"
Elenor jolted awake, gulping in deep, frantic breaths. Panic, suspicion, and fear were etched into her eyes; with every inhale her chest rose and fell sharply, her heart pounding against her ribcage like a war drum. She scanned her surroundings in a rush, trying to understand where she was and what had happened.
"Where… am I?"
She blinked several times, rubbing her eyes with her hands as if she were waking from a dream.
"Why do I feel so exhausted?"
She struggled to move her body; every limb felt as heavy as lead. During the integration process, her body had forcibly drained every last drop of its energy reserves. Even while she had been unconscious, her body had worked relentlessly for hours, like a battlefield that never slept. As Elenor slowly tried to calm herself, fragments of what she had experienced began to surface in her mind.
"The last thing I remember… I opened the box my grandfather sent… There was a smartwatch inside… I picked it up and put it on my wrist…"
Elenor suddenly flinched and looked at her left arm. When she saw the watch tightly clasped around her wrist, the indescribable torture of the integration moment came flooding back in vivid detail. Terror seized her; her breathing became shallow and erratic. Unable to endure the violent nausea twisting her stomach, she leaned over the edge of the veranda and retched, vomiting. Her stomach, already empty for hours, cramped painfully. Exhausted both from the aftermath of that horrific process and from vomiting, Elenor collapsed flat on her back onto the floor. Her chest heaved rapidly with each uneven breath.
"What happened to me? Why did it happen? What is this thing, really?"
She clutched her head with trembling hands. The metallic surface of the watch on her left wrist reflected the artificial light of the greenhouse, gleaming coldly. Because of her photographic memory, she could recall every second of that torture as if she were reliving it all over again. She bit her lip, but the trembling in her body refused to subside. She bit down harder and harder until a thin line of blood seeped from her full lower lip. The last time she had felt devastation like this was when she lost her family—but that had been emotional ruin. This was outright physical slaughter.
She drew deep breaths, trying to steady herself, to push those agonizing memories out of her mind. After a few minutes, she managed to calm down—if only slightly.
"Calm down, Elenor… Calm down… Panicking doesn't suit you…"
Once she had regained a bit of control, her ruby-red eyes drifted back to her left wrist. The sole cause of all this shock, panic, and pain was that small device. She reached with her right hand to remove the watch—but even her first attempt sent a sharp pain shooting through her wrist.
"Agh! Why won't this come off?!"
At that moment, Elenor remembered the very first seconds when the integration had begun. This time she didn't tremble—her eyes simply widened in sheer horror.
"No… That's impossible… It can't be completely fused to me!"
She tried to stand up, but her legs weren't ready; her violently shaking knees failed to support her, and she staggered before collapsing back onto the sofa behind her. Her entire body felt utterly drained, as though she had been subjected to the most brutal training nonstop for days. She took deep breaths, filling her lungs.
"Calm down… Just calm down…"
Her gaze drifted once more to her left arm. When she noticed the swollen veins bulging beneath her skin, her brows furrowed and her mind was dragged back into the moment of integration yet again. As she recalled that horrific pain—starting from her wrist, crawling up to her shoulder, and then spreading through her body like a creeping vine—her eyes widened and her entire body began to shake uncontrollably.
"No… This has to be an illusion. Just a nightmare…"
In panic, she grabbed the watch with her right hand and tried to rip it off with all her strength. But in that instant, an excruciating pain exploded through both her wrist and her entire arm. She recoiled and screamed.
"AHHH!"
The watch shifted only by a millimeter under the force—but the moment Elenor released it, the device realigned itself on her wrist as if it were a living organism. It snapped back into place far more forcefully than before, locking itself onto her wrist; there wasn't even the slightest gap left between the strap and her skin. The pressure caused even greater pain, but what truly filled Elenor with dread was the sight of the black veins across her body becoming sharply visible again, twitching for an instant as the watch settled into place.
With that movement and the pain that accompanied it, Elenor let out an even louder scream, her voice echoing through the deepest corners of the laboratory. In that moment, she realized a bitter truth: there was no way to remove this watch by normal means. She took deep breaths to calm herself. After a few seconds, she forced herself to think rationally—but the trembling in her body simply would not stop.
'It's fine. Stay calm… This is something my grandfather made,' she thought to herself. 'He would never intentionally hurt me. When I accidentally cut my hand as a child, he cried more than I did—he almost had me admitted to a private hospital over a tiny scratch. He dotes on me… But what exactly is this watch? Why did I go through all of that? I don't understand…'
Still trembling, Elenor fixed her gaze on the watch on her left wrist. Taking a deep breath, she slowly brought her right hand toward the screen.
"There's only one way to understand… Let's see what this thing really is."
She slightly raised her left wrist. The moment her right finger touched the screen, digital text began to appear. Elenor read each line with intense focus.
"Integration process? So that torture was because of this… Vitamin deficiency? Is it telling me to eat an apple? Toxins expelled from the body? Damaged or missing cells repaired?! What exactly does this thing do? Wait a second…"
At that moment, Elenor noticed the black fluid seeping from her body. Her pajamas were practically stained pitch-black—but worse than that was the overpowering stench hitting her nose. Her stomach lurched violently once again.
"Ughh! This smell… Is this smell really coming from me?!"
She tried to get away from there immediately, but her body was still far too weak. Especially the clothes that had absorbed all that filth were reeking like a corpse right under her nose. Unable to endure it any longer, she ripped off her pajama top in a single motion and flung it aside. The stench hitting her nose lessened slightly, but she was still struggling against that heavy, suffocating smell. The good thing was that as her focus shifted to this disgusting odor and the need to clean herself, her trembling eased a little.
'Great! I haven't eaten anything, I already threw up what wasn't even there, and now it's going to happen again! At this rate, am I going to vomit my stomach acid?!'
After making that bitter joke to herself and feeling slightly relieved, she focused on the watch again.
"Is this thing really monitoring and healing my body? Grandfather… what are you up to now?"
Elenor quickly dismissed all the technical notifications appearing on the screen. She could see every possible piece of data about her body—total cell count, blood type, real-time white blood cell balance, even the most detailed analysis of her heart rhythm. Just as she thought she understood what she was seeing, the flood of notifications vanished, and a single line appeared on the screen:
[You have a message from Soren Altarez!]
The trembling in Elenor's body stopped instantly, as if cut by a blade, the moment she saw the message. Now she knew for certain that this was her grandfather's doing. Even though she sometimes got angry with him, her trust in Soren was absolute; she knew that even if he burned the entire world to the ground, he would never harm a single strand of her hair. Elenor touched the message. The runes on the watch flared to life in a vivid blue, and a beam of light projected from the edge of the screen, forming Soren's hologram in front of her.
"Did you miss me, my honey bun!"
Elenor stared at the hologram's face with a cold expression.
"Right now? Absolutely not."
The video recording continued. Soren spoke in his usual narcissistic, cocky, and overly dramatic tone:
"Yes! I can just imagine how much you missed your perfect grandfather! And your grandfather missed you too, my little bunny~"
For a moment, Elenor forgot the horrific pain she had just endured and covered her face in embarrassment.
"So humiliating… Thank goodness I'm alone. I'm the only one hearing this nonsense."
Soren's hologram continued:
"If you're watching this, it means you've already put the watch on your wrist…"
Soren's expression suddenly changed. The cheerful, childish, narcissistic man vanished; in his place stood a helpless man whose eyes were filled with pain and sorrow. Elenor froze in shock—she had never seen her grandfather like this in her entire life. Soren continued, his voice deeper now:
"Haahhh… Elenor… I can never imagine the pain you endured during the integration. I can only calculate it mathematically. I'm so sorry, my girl… I wish there had been a less painful way. But this watch instantly expels any foreign substance from the body. Painkillers, anesthesia, narcotics… it makes no difference. Anything that could numb you or knock you unconscious is classified by the system as 'harmful.' If I could have created an artificial intelligence, everything would have been much easier…"
Elenor listened with intense focus. As her grandfather explained, she began to feel much better than before—at least now she understood that what she had experienced was part of a planned process. But the real question was still there: why? What was this device for?
Soren took a deep breath and continued:
"Elenor… listen to me very carefully, my girl. This is extremely important. You need to know what you're dealing with. Ten years ago, when it became certain that the number of rifts was increasing instead of decreasing, two emperors made a joint decision. A secret project was launched under my leadership. Its name was Artificial Awakening."
For a moment, Elenor couldn't fully process what she was hearing—but her sharp mind analyzed the situation within seconds. She was horrified.
"Wait… Artificially triggering an awakening? By human hands?! That's impossible! That's forcibly activating human potential. The body can't withstand that—the result is guaranteed death; at best, permanent disability. Awakening isn't some simple process!"
Her mouth hung open in shock as she instinctively looked down at the watch on her wrist. If her grandfather had brought up this topic, there was only one possible meaning.
"Oh come on… He couldn't have… right?"