In a room located deeply below the hospital of the Academy something strange was happening. A hand had just shot out of the sleeping pod located in the middle of the room, shattering the thick glass of the contraption.
Another hand shot out, increasing the size of the hole that formed even more, which was then followed by well sculpted upper body with a head full of silky, bright golden, swaying gently. Using his hands to support himself, the human, sat up, finally opening his eyes calmly. Brushing aside the pieces of shattered glass that had fallen into his golden locks and face, he looked around, red eyes scanning the room.
When he found no one around himself, a sigh escaped his mouth and Gilgamesh stood up, summoning his [Golden Armour] to cover himself up after he noticed that he was wearing absolutely nothing.
"Sucks, I was hoping someone would be here to witness my epic awakening. I wouldn't have made it that dramatic if I had known that no one was here."
A professional aura farmer always thought about aura farming no matter what situation he found himself in.
Shaking his head at the thought with a slight smile, he stepped outside of the pod, the glass crunching under his metalic boot as he did so. Suddenly catching a look of himself in one of the broken piece of the mirror, Gilgamesh couldn't resist the urge and lifted it up to take a closer look at his face.
His hair was longer than it was before mostly because of spending his time inside of the Dream Realm, not because of his awakening, the color of the eyes deeper, they seemed to swirl endlessly, almost hypnotizing as he stared into them for too long, rubbing his forehead irritatedly, he looked away towards the hair instead.
The strands of hair stop his head moved with every twist and turn of his head smoothly, as if having a mind of their own, they seemed to be even more brighter and shinier than before. Most noticeable change however was his face, the skin had become clearer and smoother, even though he didn't have any blemishes before, it looked even better now with no noticeable irregularities, it looked like had been painted by a master artist.
"Truly a worthy appearance for a person such as myself."
Nodding his head and tossing the piece of glass aside, Gilgamesh started walking towards the door, not pausing to look around the room.
As he reached the door, perhaps recognising his authority, the door swung on its own.
Is what he would have thought were it not for the nurse stepping through the door, looking at him with shock when she noticed him standing there in his full glory.
"Slee- Awakened Gilgamesh.. you're awake?"
The nurse was rather plain looking, brown hair, dark eyes wearing the standard issued uniform, it did not take him long to deduct that she was not an Awakened, which was weird, why would they assign someone ass weak as her to deal with traumatized Awakeneds who were just waking up after going through hell.
Still, he couldn't resist himself as a smirk graced his lips at her question.
"No, I am dead."
At the horrified expression of the nurse,—which was definitely not because of how trash it was—Gilgamesh laughed at his own joke and brushed past her, striding through between the grey walls of the hallway, heading towards the stairs that he had spotted that would lead him towards the main floor.
Having recovered from her shock, at his very funny joke, the nurse closed the door hurriedly and rushed to walk beside him.
"Welcome back to the real world sir!"
Not pausing to reply to her statement, Gilgamesh continued walking up the stairs and threw her a glance while enjoying the cool air that was flowing around him, it was probably because of how deep this facility was located.
"Tell me, is PlayStation still a thing?"
Since he had entered the Dream Realm, due to boredom, he had been itching to get his hands on something fun, like games, life got quite boring killing the same filthy Nightmare Creatures afterall.
Though, Gilgamesh wouldn't be surprised to find out that the company had disappeared due to the Third World War and everything that had happened after it.
Maybe not, he doubted the billionaires would let themselves get killed that easily, much less their companies which were deeply rooted in society.
So most probably, famous companies like PlayStation and the others should still exist. However the physical copies of famous books and documents were probably gone, lost forever. It felt like a great loss to a history enthusiast as himself.
Because of that Gilgamesh had checked whether the Internet Archive was still a thing and to his surprise it was. It's logo was still the same, even after everything that had happened in this world.
"Uh- yes? The company PlayStation is still a thing, if I am not wrong then they had released PS8 a few years ago."
Humming to himself at her answer, Gilgamesh paused, stepping forward to look at the hallway across from him where commotion was happening with multiple doctors and nurses running around due to multiple Sleepers, who were thought to be lost forever, waking up at the same time.
Quickly losing interest after seeing nothing interesting except for the doctors he did not recognise, he turned away, continuing to walk up the stairs towards the top floor.
The nurse hurried to follow him after looking at the hallways and turned to him with a hesitant look on her face before speaking up.
"Though the company has been losing relevance due to the advances in Virtual Reality."
Gilgamesh stopped for half a second before continuing to walk, his hands clasped calmly behind his back. Was she a gaming enthusiast as well?
Ofcourse, he had almost forgotten about the whole DreamScape thing. It made sense that normal games were losing popularity due that.
No matter, he planned to try out all the new games as well as the DreamScape to enjoy his time peacefully.
"Sir, you will have to conduct an interview with the officials of the Academy now that you have woken up."
With a simple nod of his head acknowledging the statement of the nurse, Gilgamesh continued ascending the stairs.
He wanted to reach the main floor to address all the Sleepers before they left, announcing his plans and letting them know about it.
While he could have just teleported there, he preferred walking all the way there to get a feel of his new Awakened body.
...
Folding his arms, Gilgamesh leaned back into the chair and stared outside the window of the small office he was in currently with a bored expression.
Originally, he was supposed to give the interview to a simple interviewer however, the news about his prowess had spread and now he was assigned a higher ranked specialist to talk with about what happened inside of the Dream Realm.
With a exhale, Gilgamesh turned his eyes away from the window to look at the Awakened sitting in front of him.
The Awakened—who's name he had already forgotten—looked to be around in his late twenties with a few weathered lines running across his forehead as he smiled gently, appearing as approachable as possible.
"I will ask you a series of questions about your time in the Dream Realm. The purpose of this briefing is to enrich our base of knowledge about it, as well as let us know how to better assist you in the future. Any little bit of information you can provide might help future Dreamers in their own trials, but you don't have to answer if you don't want to, of course."
There was a slight tension in the Awakened's shoulder as he went through the usual procedure, it was probably the first and last time he would be interviewing someone like Gilgamesh.
Still, the gentle smile the interviewers face did not diminish, it seemed to have grown even wider slightly.
With a curious expression, Gilgamesh nodded his head, agreeing to answer truthfully.
Surely the Awakened had some sort of lie detector Ability or Attribute, right? It would be too easy for someone to lie about their achievements just to look better. But then again, his deeds and achievements were already verified by multiple other people, so perhaps it was not needed.
With the smile not moving an inch from his face, he continued softly.
"How long have you spent in the Dream Realm?"
Gilgamesh rubbed his chin in thought. Having being so focused on leaving the Dream Realm and killing Nightmare Creatures to reach his Third Core as quickly as possible, as well as just managing the Dark City while interacting with multiple people had been quite taxing.
Due to all that, along with a few other things, he had mostly forgotten about keeping a track of time.
Shrugging his shoulders, Gilgamesh answered the question with his rough estimate.
"A month or two? Probably less than two months, I think."
The Awakened nodded his head, adjusting his classes with smile and asked his next question.
"From the interviews with the other Dreamers, we have confirmed that the region of the Dream Realm you were sent to is populated with Nightmare Creatures of the Awakened Rank and above. Can you confirm that information?"
A smirk spread across Gilgamesh's face as the answer flowed smoothly through his mouth.
"Indeed, the number of Nightmare Creatures above the rank of Awakened were astronomical, I myself killed multiple of them."
Gilgamesh brushed the lock of hair that had fallen in front of his eyes with his hand, he definitely needed a haircut.
"I even faught against a Great Titan, the Dark Sea and damage it."
The Awakened skin colour became slightly paler as his fingers twitched, instinctively moving up to adjust his glasses nervously. Even his smile fell off slightly and looked more forced.
Gilgamesh laughed and leaned further back into his chair, he wasn't lying about fighting against the Dark Sea, well it couldn't exactly be termed as fighting, but still.
Out of curiosity, during one of the normal days in the Dream Realm when he was done killing Nightmare Creatures, Gilgamesh had decided to try something.
He had opened multiple portals, as big as he could manage and sucked quite a bit of the water of the Dark Sea inside [Gate of Babylon]. Unfortunately, he had to remove the stored water immediately because the sea had started acting immensely agitated.
Either way, he counted that as damaging the Great Titan in his books, pretty good if he had to say.
The interviewer, after a second, composed himself and the smile returned to his face, looking a lot more forced than it was before.
"I see... You did very well, Awakened Gilgamesh."
The Awakened paused, considering his next words carefully before speaking again, his tone light.
"Very few Dreamers have managed to survive for that long. Much less as strive as you have done, especially in a region such as the Forgotten Shore. Also, this 'Dark Sea' that you mentioned, what exactly is it?"
Gilgamesh's eyes flickered towards the Awakened, causing him to freeze as if been observed by a predator.
"Hmm, what exactly is the Dark Sea? Truthfully, even I don't know much about it. The Great Titan was supposedly sealed by some seven heroes but managed to loosen the seal placed upon it after thousands of years, it is probably fully unsealed by now. The sea also has multiple other Nightmare Creatures inside of it. That's pretty much it."
Fingers taping against the armrest, Gilgamesh nodded to himself and paused. The sea truly was a fascinating thing, he planned on coming back to it in the future to kill it, or capture it.
Would killing the sea make the creatures inside it's water dead aswell? Or would they just fall to the ground? Perhaps it was a better idea to just seal it inside [Gate of Babylon] and unleash it upon his enemies if required.
While chuckling lightly at the thought, Gilgamesh refocused his attention towards the interviewer with a laid-back smirk.
"We have... heard about your battles against many Nightmare Creatures, however, we want direct confirmation from you, how many have you killed."
The interviewer leaned forward onto the desk, steepling his fingers and looking at him intensely.
Gilgamesh tapped his forehead, thinking about the question.
"It could be anywhere from two thousand to three thousand. I lost count after the first fifty or so."
The Awakened interviewing him exhaled through his nose and leaned back, it was unheard of for a Sleeper to kill such an immense amount of Nightmare Creatures. Hell even most Awakened or Masters did not have a kill count as large as his.
Even Gilgamesh was proud of himself for liberating such wretched creatures from their miserable lives, truly he given them the ultimate mercy by freeing them from their abominable bodies.
Indeed he was very maganimity knew no bounds.
While rubbing his forehead, the interviewer continued asking questions while Gilgamesh answered them truthfully, glazing himself as much as he could.
Not long after, the interviewer thanked him for his time and Gilgamesh left, strecting his arms and yawning while exiting.
...
Word Count: 2227