Eren could use Reen to extract Julie’s memories and share them with him. At least that’s what he was planning before using any other means.
Reen’s powers were peculiar in a lot of ways. She wasn’t a battle-oriented demon beast. But her other distinguishing abilities made up for that lack of traits.
When Reen ate her prey, she processed their memories as well. But she used to ignore most of those fragmented memories because they weren’t compatible with her. Her lack of sufficient intelligence was also a roadblock.
All she could process were some bits and pieces that didn’t make sense in her head.
But all that changed with her new transformation, increasing her intelligence in the process. At least that’s what Eren had conjured. The beast contract spell gave Reen the ability to process the memories of her prey better.
The conjecture was based on the fact that Reen could extract the memories of Purple Lightning snakes that she ate. As her master, Eren could take a quick look through those memories via their mental connection.
Reen shared her experience with Eren that what she used to process before were mostly blurred images. But now she could see them more clearly, that too as moving pictures with audio and surrounding details looped in.
Eren wasn’t aware of Reen’s power before the transformation. But that is because he wasn’t made privy to these memory fragments before the transformation. It was like those foreign pieces of memory fragments stayed foreign in her head.
But the transformation changed all that. And with Reen’s improved intelligence stat, it became easier for her to process those memories with efficiency. The improved intelligence also helped her share those memories with her masters as if they were her own and not some foreign entities.
But that was not all. On that day, Eren had also observed that Reen could extract the memories from half-dead magic beasts before killing them. She would just spread her slimy mass over them and the memory extraction would begin as she slowly digested her prey.
That’s what gave Eren the confidence to carry out this experiment. He wanted to see if Reen could still do that with humans as her prey. Extracting their memories without killing them.
Of course, Eren wasn’t aware how Reen’s prey felt at the time of their memories getting read by a foreign entity. And things were bound to get more difficult with a human with higher intelligence and perception getting subjected to this procedure.
Therefore Eren exhausted Julie completely before commencing this part of his plan. If this doesn’t work out, he’d have to tell Reen to kill the assistant professor while ensuring the blame falls on Ron Damian.
But that too had a problem. Ron Damian was a made-up identity. Anybody would come to that conclusion if they start digging.
So Eren wanted to give Reen’s powers a chance before he burnt his bridges. And he had to do it.
The more he learned about Reen, the more he felt that the figures in the shadows won’t let this matter go this easily. They had to have been cooking something. And he needed to know what that was.
Eren knew being passive all the time wasn’t always in his best interest. He needed to take some risks to gain leverage over his unknown enemies.
“Should I eat her?”
Reen asked while shapeshifting into a beautiful naked girl. She had now changed her proportions from petite to curvy, just the way her master liked them. Maybe that was done subconsciously after getting to understand Eren’s preferences or maybe that was intentional.
But Eren was too focused on Julie to care. He looked at Reen with a serious expression while saying:
“No need to kill her as of now. Try to extract all her recent memories without harming her. She shouldn’t wake up during the process. But be careful anyway.
Now go. We don’t have much time.”
Eren commanded Reen with a stoic voice. Reen understood and felt the seriousness of the matter. She nodded her head before again turning into her original slimy mass.
The slumbering, half-naked Julie’s body was seen being covered by a slimy substance. And that slimy substance was glowing with a faint mana radiance.
‘Aaah… Erni…
The memories are too many…
With… overwhelming details.
Feeling… weird.’
Reen sent a mental distress signal to her master as soon as the process started. Eren knew things won’t go that smoothly so he was prepared:
‘Alright, Reen. Stop for now. And rest.’
Eren sent her a mental message and observed Julie’s condition. The bodacious E-Ranker looked like she was having a bad dream.
Her face was showing signs of stress and restlessness. But overall she was fine and breathing normally.
Eren told Reen to go slow for the next time and focus anything about Osan Woods’ Butcher in her memories. Reen obliged and started her operation again after a while.
The master-beast duo completed their operation and left the place using the dark of the night as their cover. There was no meaning in staying there any longer and risk blowing their cover.
Before leaving, Eren left a perfunctory letter on the room’s bedside table, telling Julie about how he enjoyed her company. He told her that he was contacted by his employer and therefore had some urgent work. But that they’d meet again after he finishes the current assignment.
The butcher had written this letter so that Julie gets pacified and doesn’t start digging into his past. At least not anytime soon. She’d wait for “Ron” to finish his work before meeting her.
Eren thought of a lot of things going wrong in his plans. His past experiences in the previous timeline gave him a reason to. That’s why he thought about countermeasures even before the problem arrived. The now-teen old man tried to implement precision in each of his moves.
And thanks to those countermeasures born out of OCD behaviour, Eren had the information he wanted while ensuring his identity remained hidden in the process.
***********
Eren was using a colt service to travel back to his dorm room. It seemed like he was pondering over something as he traversed through an almost empty road in the light of the breaking dawn.
Reen had shared some of Julie’s memories with him that was related to him and the subject of his interest. He couldn’t help grabbing his chin with one hand and caressing it while controlling the colt using the leash with the other:
“Hmm! So they know Osan Woods’ Butcher or someone related to him has entered the LA grounds!
What should I do now?”
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AN: This extra chapter is dedicated to all the readers who’ve contributed their time and resources into this work. ?