Astaria’s vision became black as the ceiling above her faded and weightlessness gripped her body. A few seconds later the warm padding of the gaming pod became present on her back as gravity once again took hold of her senses as she opened her eyes.
Taking a noticeably feminine deep breath, she raised her hands to her chest, feeling 2 soft bare breasts. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, her face scrunching up as her last hope that the goddess had been lying was utterly crushed.
“For fucks sake. Of course, she was telling the truth. What a gods forsaken mess.”
Astaria lay there with her eyes closed, trying to distract herself with anything that could give her a moment of respite from reality, however, all her attempts miserably failed. The feelings of her breasts lightly moving with each breath, the wider gap between her legs where her manhood was no longer present, and the feelings of her long and slender legs that she had been mentally blocking out. All of these unfamiliar feelings within an environment she was used to experiencing a certain way constantly drew her focus as she kept comparing the differences.
Tears slowly fell from her eyes as the impact of her new reality hit her. She was unable to push it to the back of her mind like inside the game where she was able to disassociate from the issue. She would just log out back into her male body and the whole issue with Fortuna would be revealed to be a joke. Her life would be like usual. That she would not need to get used to the female body, that she would not need to completely reestablish her life, that she would not have so much piling up on her shoulders that she would be crushed under the pressure.
Astaria started to hyperventilate, feeling her mind swirl as all the things she imagined she would need to get done that came into her mind when her thoughts were unoccupied inside Caelus hit her at once. The idea that she had left as a possibility in the ‘what if she was actually gender swapped’ scenario outside of the game solidified itself as fact causing her mental state to finally break.
She could feel the burden of all the things that only she could do pile up one after another, the pressure causing images of the past to enter her mind. Images of ruined streets, of crumbled buildings with the limbs of the deceased visibly poking out. The image of a friend of many years with her skull caved in, lying dead in a pool of her own blood. The image of once cheerful employees with looks of horror on their faces as they lay slumped down, dead. All the things that could come to pass if she failed to change the future.
Astaria covered her eyes with her forearm, trying to catch her breath as her chest heaved up and down. She pinched her leg as hard as she could, putting all her mental strength to focus on that feeling as she tried to calm her breathing. After an amount of time that she was unable to discern, Astaria’s breathing had finally returned to normal as she had calmed her mind. She could still feel the illusion of a weight pressing down on her chest, but it was not as noticeable as before.
With her composure somewhat regained and feeling a little more liberated after having let out some of the bottled up emotion through her shed tears, she was able to focus back on her surroundings, putting her mind to the task of moving forward to keep her from the encroaching thoughts.
The most significant thing that was drawing her regained attention was her hair that was currently sticking to her back from her sweat, while the ends of each strand prickled everywhere from just above her ass to her neck. She could only imagine the messy state it was currently in, so she reached up and tried to gather her hair to one side and out from under her back. With the major irritation now alleviated, she tried to centre herself and calm her mind. After about 5 minutes a light knock resounded through the small pod as who Astaria assumed to be Harold called out in an uncertain voice.
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“Are you awake Your Grace?”
With a shakey voice, Astaria replied, concerned at how Harold would respond after hearing her words coming out sounding feminine.
“Harold, is that you? Please give me a minute to compose myself. Can you also have the bath run, please? I have been sweating and it smells… bad?”
Astaria’s last comment came out sounding more like a question. She sniffed the air in the pod, noticing that the usual smell of body odour was not present, instead smelling like fresh air mixed with the smell of new plastic and silicone.
Surprised she didn’t notice it when she first regained consciousness, she was brought out of her reverie as Harold in a somewhat unsure voice responded, his words sounding feint from inside the pod.
“A-ah yes, as you wish.”
Astaria let out a few deep breaths as she focused her mind on her current state, fully noticing she was half naked, wearing just the shorts she had put on before she first logged in. She could feel that they were held in place around her hips, but the waistband was loose. Taking a momentary breath, she tightened the waist cord to ensure the shorts stayed on, while calling out to Harold again.
“Harold, could you get me a bathrobe please? I only entered in my shorts so my upper body is currently bare.”
Harold who also had some time to compose himself called back after turning the bath taps on, his voice sounding more assured.
“At once.”
A few moments later his voice once again sounded through the pod.
“Whenever you are ready, I am not looking and I am the only one in the room.”
With a quick word of thanks, Astaria opened the pod to see Harold with his straight back facing her, the bathrobe hung over his left arm that was extended to the side. She stood up and put on the garment, noticing the different feeling of tying up the belt as it wrapped around her much narrower waist, leaving far more excess length dangling. With the noticeable difference pushed to the back of her mind like everything else, Astaria then spoke up again.
“Thanks, Harold, honestly, this all is a mess. I apologise for the trouble.”
Harold turned around, his expression widening in shock as he observed Astaria’s new face.
“Is… is that really you Chester?”
With a resigned sigh, Astaria replied.
“Unfortunately, yes. If you need confirmation, we can do the whole ‘ask me something only Chester would know’ routine?”
With a somewhat resigned expression, Harold let out a sigh as he gave a shake of his head.
“That will be entirely unnecessary. The documents that arrived yesterday clear any doubt. It is just that seeing this sort of thing is truly destroying my view of the world.”
Astaria responded as she lent her hand on the edge of the pod and carefully climbed out, struggling a little as her shorts were restricting how far she could raise her leg.
“Well, consider yourself lucky it is not in the middle of the street with monsters charging around indiscriminately killing people.”
Harold recoiled slightly with a grimace, responding in a slightly disturbed tone.
“Yes, I suppose that is true. Duly noted. Anyway, we have a lot more on our agenda than before, but I believe it would first be best to explain your current circumstances. I have organised a document summarising all of the additional tasks that will need to be completed. In addition, I have also placed a temporary set of women’s clothes on the bed for you to change into. Since we did not have your size, Head Maid Hilda picked out something that would fit given the estimation of your size that Roxanne provided.”
Letting out another sigh, this time sounding far more tired, Astaria gave a nod feeling relieved that Harold had made her life just that bit easier.
“Yes, that’s a good suggestion. But first, give me a little time to have a bath, you know how uncomfortable I feel after getting out… oh, never mind, ignore me. My mind is a little bit of a mess right now so I’m running somewhat on reflexes.”
Harold gave an awkward laugh as he bowed and left the room.
“Very well. I shall be on standby should you require anything.”
With her room now all to herself, she made her way into the bathroom where she could immediately feel a change in temperature from the hot steam rising from the bath. This was the first time she was properly bathing herself and the mental significance of that was really starting to hit home.
Astaria knew that she did not have the time to spend messing about as she came to terms with the gender change, so mentally berated herself and just committed to getting herself clean.