"Ugh..."
A muddled groan escaped her lips. Bathed in a soft, pinkish-blue halo, a cherry blossom-haired girl struggled to prop herself up from a wide, soft bed.
At that moment, the girl felt as though her consciousness were submerged in thick syrup, only managing to breach the surface after several arduous seconds.
When she finally forced her eyes open, her vision was blurred. Everything in her field of view seemed to sway and overlap, as if she were looking out through a layer of flowing water.
Seeing this, she blinked hard, trying to dispel the double vision.
After a short while, her vision managed to focus, but the sight before her left her completely stunned.
She was in an entirely unfamiliar room.
The wallpaper was pale pink, and the curtains were deep blue—heavy velvet fabric that hung tightly, sealing out all external light. Only a complex ceiling lamp overhead shed a soft white glow, enveloping the broad, pinkish-blue bed and dimly illuminating the depths of the room.
Furthermore, a strange sweet scent drifted through the air, and the surface beneath her felt elastic—nothing like the rock-hard bedboards in her dormitory.
After a moment of dazed silence, the girl raised her hand, pressing her fingertips firmly against her temples to rub them.
She suspected she might be hallucinating because she had stayed up too late the previous night.
But clearly, it was a futile gesture.
As time passed, the girl's consciousness began to gradually clear.
Seeing that the scene before her and the texture beneath her remained unchanged no matter how much she rubbed her eyes, she finally accepted the reality that this was no hallucination.
Then, she muttered to herself:
"What's going on... where... is this?"
But the moment the words left her mouth, the girl's entire body suddenly froze.
Because she had just discovered something incredibly strange.
The girl slapped her hand over her mouth, her pupils shrinking violently.
"My voice?!"
The voice was incredibly soft and sweet, carrying the lazy nasal tone of someone who had just woken up, with a natural upward lilt at the end that sounded extremely cute.
But this was definitely not the original voice she had used for twenty years!
Seeing this, she immediately lowered her head and began to examine her own body.
Following that, she instantly noticed the slight swell on her chest.
In an instant, an unprecedented, inexplicable panic seized her. Ignoring the slight pain still echoing in her head, the girl scrambled to throw back the thin pinkish-blue quilt and stumbled out of bed, her bare feet hitting the floor.
The chill from the soles of her feet gave her a jolt, making her consciousness feel a fraction clearer.
Her eyes darted hurriedly around the room, finally locking onto a European-style dressing mirror with a blue-gold frame beside the bed.
At the sight, the girl practically lunged forward, her palms immediately bracing against the edge of the dressing table.
Then, she looked at the face reflected in that dressing mirror.
The person in the mirror wore a loose, pale pink coat, one side of which had slipped off her shoulder to reveal a matching camisole dress underneath.
At her collarbone, an exquisite necklace rose and fell slightly with her breathing. Most striking of all was that head of pink hair, which faded into an ethereal blue at the tips.
Upon seeing the image in the mirror, the girl subconsciously leaned closer.
She looked into the eyes of the person in the mirror.
They were clear and bright, as if encompassing the entire starry night sky, and the pupils within those eyes exhibited a strange, rhombus-shaped form.
She recognized the face in the mirror all too well.
"This... this is... Cyrene?"
Looking at the face in the mirror, she murmured to herself, her voice trembling slightly.
Then, she raised her fingertips and gently touched her own face.
In the mirror, the girl performed the exact same action simultaneously.
A real, warm sensation traveled from her fingertips. At this, the girl abruptly jerked her hand back, her whole body freezing as her mind went blank.
After a long time, she finally opened her mouth and said in disbelief:
"I've become Cyrene? This... this can't be right, can it?"
Although she found the conclusion hard to believe herself, it seemed there were no other options available to her at the moment.
But in the next heartbeat, a new thought suddenly popped into the girl's head.
"Could I be dreaming right now? I've heard that you don't feel pain in dreams. Why don't I try it?"
At this thought, the girl hesitated for a moment before raising her hand again and forcefully pinching her fair cheek.
"Ouch..."
A sharp, clear sting radiated from her cheek with undeniable reality, causing her to instinctively cover her face with her hand.
Meanwhile, the person in the mirror immediately mirrored the action, her delicate brows furrowing slightly from the pain.
Seeing this, the girl slowly lowered her hand.
She looked at the clear red mark on Cyrene's face in the mirror, and her last shred of hope vanished completely.
"There's a sense of pain... it's not a dream..." she murmured, her voice sounding somewhat lost. "I... have really turned into Cyrene?"
She stared at this face in the mirror, which belonged to the "young Cyrene" period, and a sense of absurdity washed over her.
"And I even look like I did during the 'young Cyrene' era... what on earth is happening?"
Cyrene closed her eyes, forcing herself to calm down, and began to dig through the fragments in her chaotic memory.
Before long, shards of memory began to surge forward. She snapped her eyes open, and the daze in her deep blue rhombus-shaped pupils instantly transformed into overwhelming grief and indignation.
"I remember now!"
Cyrene gritted her teeth, her hands gripping the edge of the dressing table so hard her knuckles turned white.
"To save for her! I saved up a full thousand gacha draws! I grinded day and night, lived frugally, all just to pull a complete version of her!"
"And the result..." She looked at herself in the mirror, her eyes inexplicably welling with a few tears. "I was set up by Mihoyo! I hit the hard pity every single time! I lost every 50/50!"
"A thousand draws thrown in!" Her voice took on a sob. "Not only were there no draws left for the light cone banner, I didn't even manage to get Cyrene to max eidolon!"
The last memory froze on the moment her consciousness snapped: on the computer screen, that seemingly mocking level 5 eidolon Cyrene, and the empty "superimposition level 0" in the light cone slot next to her.
In that moment, anger, resentment, and despair turned into a surging grudge. Then, her vision went black, and her consciousness fell into total darkness.
"So..." Cyrene released her grip, her hands falling powerlessly as a look of depression and dejection appeared on her face. "I... because of my gacha failure, the anger went to my head... and I literally transmigrated myself out of pure rage?"
After calming down from the resentment of the failed pulls, a wave of embarrassment swept through her entire body.
Cyrene covered her face, her toes curling.
This was too humiliating!
"I'm sorry..." she whispered to the void. "I've disgraced my seniors who were sent flying by trucks while saving people... I've brought shame to my fellow transmigrators..."
After saying this, Cyrene took a few deep breaths and then slapped her cheeks hard.
"Alright, calm down! Now is not the time to dwell on this!"
The priority was to figure out where she was.
Cyrene shifted her attention and re-examined the room.
"A bedroom full of girlish charm." She walked to the desk, her fingers sliding across the surface where a desktop computer sat in standby mode.
Next, she picked up the phone by the bed. The screen lit up, requiring a password or face unlock.
"Modern technology products... the furniture is all pink and blue. The original owner must have been a fan of those colors." She fiddled with the phone, analyzing in a low voice.
Suddenly, her finger paused.
A chill raced up her spine, making her scalp tingle.
"Wait a minute!" Her voice trembled. "While this room doesn't look like Cyrene's residence in Amphoreus from the game... that doesn't mean she hasn't moved!"
"And Amphoreus has things similar to mobile phones too."
Even though something like a computer hadn't appeared there, it didn't mean Amphoreus didn't have them.
If this really was Amphoreus...
Thinking of the disasters that occurred in that world, Cyrene felt her throat go dry and her heart clench.
If she had transmigrated into the Cyrene of that plot... wouldn't that be starting on hell mode?
At this thought, Cyrene immediately dropped the phone and rushed to the window.
Then, she grabbed the heavy curtains and yanked them open to both sides!
Swoosh—!
Outside the window was a heavy night sky.
The dark heaven was dotted with sparse stars, and streetlights glowed with orange-yellow light, sketching the outlines of the roads.
Not far away was a cluster of modern buildings, their lights merging into a sea of radiance.
A few cars drove along the asphalt road, their taillights dragging out streaks of light, and the faint sound of honking drifted from the distance.
Seeing this familiar and peaceful urban scene, Cyrene's tense expression collapsed instantly, and she slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
"Whew..."
A long sigh of relief escaped her lips as she wiped the cold sweat from her forehead.
"It's a modern world... not Amphoreus." She murmured to herself.
As long as it wasn't that high-risk world, everything would be manageable.
After confirming her basic safety, Cyrene's mind began to buzz again.
Since it was a transmigration... there should be a cheat or a golden finger, right?
"Logically, transmigrators should come standard with a System? Or a status panel..."
Cyrene climbed up from the floor and, with a hint of hesitation, called out softly to the room:
"Great System... are you there?"
Before the words had even faded.
A sudden change occurred!
The ceiling lamp overhead instantly flickered out, plunging the room into darkness.
Immediately following that, a powerful sensation of weightlessness struck. Cyrene felt as if she were high in the air, with nothing beneath her feet to step on.
"Eh?!"
Cyrene cried out, instinctively flailing her arms in the darkness, only to grasp at thin air.
Just as she thought she was about to fall, the scene before her eyes suddenly distorted.
The pinkish-blue bedroom vanished, replaced by a vast and boundless cosmic starry sky.
Countless stars twinkled in every direction, converging into a flowing, radiant Milky Way.
Cosmic dust floated like gossamer, with rotating nebulae and the outlines of galaxies in the distance.
Cyrene found herself suspended in this void. There was nothing beneath her feet, yet her body stood firmly.
Silence reigned in every direction, save for the shifting starlight, silently recounting the vastness of the galaxy.