AWAKENED IN ANOTHER WORLD AS AN HIGH ELF

Chapter 3: A Body That Didn’t Belong To Him

“Logan!” A loud, sharp voice called from somewhere above him, carrying enough impatience to pull Ethan toward consciousness. “Wake the fuck up, you lazy elf!”

Another voice followed, deeper and rougher, accompanied by a short burst of laughter. “Seriously, Logan. Get up. We are going to be late for the ceremony.”

Ethan's brow tightened as the unfamiliar voices drifted through the darkness. 

Logan?

Who the hell was Logan?

He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt incredibly heavy. His body felt strange too, almost as if he had been sleeping for days. He could hear the voices clearly now, but he couldn't understand why two strangers were calling him by a name that wasn't his.

With great effort, Ethan finally forced his eyes open. At first, he could see almost nothing. His vision was covered by a hazy blur, and the pale shape above him looked unfamiliar.

He blinked slowly, trying to clear his eyes, but the strange ceiling only seemed to swim in and out of focus. It was not the plain ceiling of his apartment. This one was made of smooth, pale stone, covered with enormous circular patterns that overlapped across its surface.

Ethan stared at it for several seconds, his mind struggling to understand what he was seeing. 

Where was he?

He blinked again, and this time his vision sharpened enough for him to notice something standing at the edge of his sight. Someone was beside the bed, watching him.

Ethan's eyes shifted toward the figure, and his confusion deepened.

There was more than one.

Four people were gathered around his bed, all of them staring down at him in complete silence.

The first person Ethan saw was a woman so beautiful that, for a moment, he wondered if he was still dreaming. Her long, dark hair fell in smooth waves almost to her waist, contrasting with her pale, flawless skin and delicate yet striking features.

She wore a long black dress decorated with strange silver patterns he couldn't recognize, while a small black pendant rested against her neck. Everything about her was beautiful, yet something about her appearance felt strangely unfamiliar and unnatural.

He was still staring when she suddenly leaned closer. Her beautiful face came within inches of his, her eyes narrowing as she looked directly into his.

“Finally,” she muttered, her voice carrying obvious irritation. “You’re awake.”

Ethan blinked as the woman's words finally pulled him out of his daze. He wanted to ask who she was and where he was, but his mind was still struggling to make sense of everything around him.

Nothing looked familiar, and the more he tried to understand what was happening, the more confused he became.

Instead of speaking, he slowly looked past her, and that was when he noticed the second person standing near the foot of the bed.

It was a young, tall man with neatly combed black hair. Not a single strand seemed out of place, and his handsome face had a cold, almost unnatural quality to it.

What caught Ethan's attention, however, was his skin. It was extremely pale, so pale that Ethan initially assumed the strange lighting in the room was making it look that way. But after staring for another second, he realized the lighting had nothing to do with it. The man's skin was genuinely that pale, and his eyes were an even stranger shade of dark crimson.

He was staring directly at Ethan, yet there was no surprise or concern in his expression. His clothes only made him seem more unusual. He wore a black shirt beneath a long, dark coat that fell almost to his knees, while a thin silver chain rested around his neck with a small red stone hanging from it.

Ethan swallowed and quickly moved his eyes away, but the moment his gaze landed on the third figure, his entire body stiffened.

“What the fuck?” he whispered, instinctively pressing himself farther back against the bed.

The man was enormous.

Ethan had seen big men before. He had seen bodybuilders with muscles so massive they barely looked natural, professional fighters with powerfully trained bodies, and security guards who looked strong enough to throw a grown man across a room. But the figure standing in front of him was on another level entirely.

He stood well over eight feet tall, towering over everyone else in the room. His shoulders were incredibly broad, while thick muscles covered his arms, chest, and neck. Even standing still, he looked powerful enough to be dangerous. There was something about his size and build that made Ethan think of a warrior rather than an ordinary man.

Then Ethan noticed his skin and his breath caught.

It was gray. Not gray because of the lighting. Not painted gray. Not covered in makeup. His skin was actually gray.

Ethan stared at him in disbelief, his mouth slowly falling open as his mind desperately searched for a reasonable explanation.

The giant's enormous hands hung beside his body, each finger thick and ending in a black nail that looked hard enough to tear through wood. His face was just as intimidating, with a wide, heavy jaw and a flat nose that gave his features an almost monstrous appearance.

Then Ethan's eyes moved higher.

Two short, curved horns rose from either side of the man's forehead.

For several seconds, Ethan could do nothing but stare. His heart seemed to stop for a moment before suddenly pounding against his chest, and a cold feeling spread through his stomach as one terrifying thought finally forced its way into his mind.

That isn't a human being.

His mind raced through every explanation it could find. A costume. Some elaborate special effect. A genetically modified human. A mutant. Maybe he was still dreaming.

But none of it made sense.

The man's skin looked real. The muscles were real. The horns were real. Even the faint rise and fall of his massive chest looked completely natural.

Ethan finally forced himself to look away, suddenly aware that he had been staring at the giant like a frightened child.

His eyes moved to the fourth person in the room, who was another woman. Compared to the other three, she looked almost normal.

The woman stood with her arms folded tightly across her chest, her expression carrying a level of impatience that made Ethan feel as though he had already done something to annoy her. She wasn't frightened by the strange situation. She wasn't surprised that he was awake.

If anything, she looked irritated that he had taken so long.

Ethan slowly looked between the four strangers again.

One beautiful woman whose appearance seemed almost too perfect to be real.

One pale man with crimson eyes.

One gigantic gray-skinned creature with horns.

And one ordinary-looking woman who seemed thoroughly unimpressed by his existence.

The sight left Ethan more confused than ever.

A few moments ago, he had been unconscious. Now he was lying in an unfamiliar room surrounded by people who looked as though they had stepped out of four completely different worlds.

His confusion gradually hardened into unease.

He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who these people were. He didn't even know how he had gotten here. And the strangest part was the way they were watching him. None of them looked surprised to see him awake. They looked as though they had been waiting for him to wake up.

The beautiful woman was the first to break the silence. “Logan,” she called again, this time with a sharper edge to her voice. “Why the fuck did you choose to wake up late today of all days?”

Ethan stared at her without saying a word. His mind was moving too quickly for his mouth to keep up.

Who was this woman?

Who were the other three people standing behind her?

Where was he?

And why were all four of them looking at him as though his face was one they had seen countless times before?

The woman’s irritation faded when Ethan continued to stare at her without saying a word. Her eyebrows slowly drew together, and she leaned closer, studying his face as though she were trying to figure out what was wrong.

“Logan?” she asked more carefully, her voice losing some of its earlier anger. “Are you all right?”

The name struck him again.

Logan.

Ethan felt a strange chill run through his body. He didn't know anyone named Logan.

His lips parted as he tried to speak, but before a single word could leave his mouth, something suddenly appeared directly in front of his face.

Ethan froze as a translucent blue rectangle materialized, floating in the air. The strange panel hovered roughly thirty centimeters from his face, perfectly still despite having nothing supporting it.  It looked almost like a glass screen made from blue light. 

Thin lines slowly spread across its surface, forming neat patterns before glowing white letters began appearing one after another.

[HOST CONSCIOUSNESS DETECTED.]

Ethan's breath caught in his throat as he stared at the message, completely confused.

Another line appeared beneath it.

[HOST IS AWAKE.]

A faint electronic sound rang inside his head.

It was soft, almost like the sound of a notification from a phone, except he wasn't hearing it with his ears. The sound seemed to come from somewhere inside his mind.

Then another message appeared.

[INITIALIZING SOUL-BODY SYNCHRONIZATION.]

Ethan's heart began pounding.

“What the...” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

The woman immediately noticed.

Her expression tightened as she looked at him. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice filled with concern.

Ethan didn't hear her. His entire attention was fixed on the glowing blue screen.

His first thought was that he was hallucinating. Maybe something had gone wrong with his brain. Maybe he was still unconscious. Maybe he was trapped inside some strange dream created by his dying mind.

A floating blue screen could not simply appear in front of a person's face.

Yet the panel remained, too clear and too sharp to be real. He could see every letter. He could even see the faint glow surrounding the edges of the screen.

Ethan slowly raised his hand toward it, but his fingers only passed through empty air.

Then the display changed.

[IDENTITY VERIFICATION IN PROGRESS.]

[HOST NAME: ETHAN BROWN]

Ethan's entire body went rigid, and his eyes widened as he read the name.

Ethan Brown.

That was his name… his real name.

Nobody in the room had said it. Nobody should have known it. Yet this strange screen had somehow identified him without being told.

His heartbeat became faster as another line appeared.

[AGE: 27]

[RACE: HUMAN]

[SOUL STATUS: STABLE]

[ORIGIN: UNKNOWN]

He stared at the final line for several seconds.

Then another message appeared.

[PREVIOUS BODY: DECEASED]

Ethan stopped breathing the moment he read that word. His fingers slowly tightened around the blanket covering his body, and for a few seconds, everything around him became strangely distant.

He clearly remembered being hit by the truck during his escape from the museum. But this strange system just confirmed his previous body was deceased, which meant he had really died and was now occupying a different body.

His breathing became uneven as he slowly looked back at the blue screen.

Another series of letters began forming.

[CURRENT VESSEL IDENTIFIED.]

[BODY OWNER: LOGAN VARELLO.]

Logan.

The name the woman had called him. The name everyone in the room seemed to recognize.

Ethan's fingers slowly loosened their grip on the blanket. He looked down at his body for the first time with genuine fear.

Another message appeared.

[HOST SOUL CURRENTLY OCCUPYING BODY OF LOGAN VARELLO.]

Ethan stared at the words, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes were telling him.

He was Ethan Rufallo, but the body he was inside belonged to someone named Logan Varello.

Someone else had lived in this body. Someone else had been known by the people standing around him. And somehow, Ethan's soul was now inside it.

“No...” Ethan whispered, shaking his head.

The woman immediately stepped closer.

“Logan, what is wrong with you?” she asked, her voice tense with worry. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

Ethan ignored her completely, his attention fixed on the strange blue panel was floating in front of his eyes. Then, without warning, another line of text appeared.

[BODY INFORMATION ACQUIRED.]

[NAME: LOGAN VARELLO]

[AGE: 24]

[RACE: HIGH ELF]

Ethan stared at the final line.

High elf?

His eyebrows slowly drew together as he read it again, certain that he had somehow misunderstood the words.

He knew what an elf was. Everyone on earth did.

Elves belonged in fantasy stories, ancient legends, movies, and video games. They were usually described as beautiful beings with pointed ears, strange powers, and impossibly long lives. They were fictional creatures.

They weren't real. At least, they weren't supposed to be. Yet the system was calmly telling him that the body he was occupying belonged to a twenty-four-year-old High Elf.

Ethan's lips parted. “No way,” he whispered, his voice trembling.

The woman beside the bed caught the words.

“What did you say?” she asked, leaning closer.

Ethan ignored her, his eyes remaining fixed on the final line.

[STATUS: ALIVE]

[PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES]

[STRENGTH: EXTREMELY HIGH]

[SPEED: EXTREMELY HIGH]

[REFLEXES: EXTREMELY HIGH]

[ENDURANCE: EXTREMELY HIGH]

[MAGICAL CAPACITY: EXCEPTIONAL]

[INTELLIGENCE: SUPERIOR]

Then the panel began listing abilities.

[ABILITIES DETECTED:]

[High-Speed Movement, Enhanced Strength, Enhanced Durability, Enhanced Reflexes, Regenerative Healing, Night Vision, Mana Manipulation, Elemental Magic Affinity, Advanced Magical Knowledge, Master-Level Combat Knowledge, High-Speed Learning, Enhanced Perception, Mana Detection, Spatial Awareness, Arcane Resistance]

Ethan stared at the list.

The words continued appearing.

[Additional Abilities Loading...]

His eyes widened as more information appeared.

[Ancient Elven Combat Arts, Advanced Swordsmanship, Advanced Hand-to-Hand Combat, Exceptional Tactical Intelligence, Accelerated Cognitive Processing]

[Mana Control: 91%]

[Physical Potential: 96%]

[Combat Potential: 94%]

Ethan couldn't believe what he was seeing.

This wasn't a normal human body. This Logan person was something else entirely. And Ethan was inside him.