Hopping Celestial Fox

For some reason, the attendance that day was poor and we also had a couple of substitute teachers. Apparently, there was some kind of flu epidemic going around. Or at least that was that everyone was saying.

Which was strange because it was spring and it hadn’t even been that cold lately.

Of course, my mind jumped to the worst case scenario; Whatever Mom had been infected with, I’d brought to school and infected everyone as well.

But then, why hadn’t Frank and Casey shown any signs of being sick? Or me, for that matter? Or Elyssa… Or Wi… What were the chances that we would all be immune?

But then what was happening? Was it really just a flu? Was I overreacting?

“Hanya got to them!” I heard someone furiously whisper to their neighbor and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

“She’s picking us off one by one! You are next!”

One would have thought most people would stop believing in ghost stories and urban legends by the time they started high school, but apparently, not everyone.

I then stopped and glanced at the murmuring girls with a frown.

Hold on… A made-up story about a ghost…? There were three portals at school so… Could it be…?

…

Well, that just reinforced the fact that I probably shouldn’t open any of them then. I didn’t want to release a genuine vengeful ghost into the world.

During one of the breaks, Frank, Casey, and I gathered around to chat again as the classroom emptied.

“So what were you doing in your free time while I was on a date with an elf?” Frank asked, his tone radiating smugness.

I rolled my eyes.

“I played RLO. Explored the new area and stuff, you know?”

“Oh? I thought you wanted to take a break from the portals…?”

“No, not in the portals. Just the game. On my computer. Not even VR.”

“Hmm… Alright… Feels like cheating, though.”

“I also spent some time with my Mom. We played some board games, watched movies, and so on…” Then a thought occurred to me. “And… She caught some weird eczema, so I fetched a miracle cure from that one quest in RLO.”

“Weird eczema?” Casey asked.

“Yeah, she had these… slimy greenish blue spots on her.” I grimaced, recalling them.

“Huh? Slimy greenish blue spots…?” Frank asked. “Like… fish scales?”

I frowned.

“Yeah, I guess kinda… like… fish… scales…” I trailed off as a horrifying realization dawned on me.

The enemies in the new area in RLO. The fish zombies. The greenish blue-scaled monsters. The ones who had supposedly been infected with something that zombified them.

Oh no. No no no. How hadn’t I realized this before?

“Renee…? What’s wrong?”

Frank had used his game avatar but I had been there in person. Our little scouting mission where I’d gotten stabbed in my arm. I’d used a healing potion immediately after teleporting back, but…

I took a slow breath.

“I think I might have infected my Mom with the fish zombie virus from the game…”

Their eyes widened.

“Oh shit… Wait, are we infected too? Is the entire school infected?! Is that why there are so many people absent?! Is that the ‘flu’?!”

A chill went down my spine.

“I… I don’t know. We could all be infected without showing signs…”

Had I inadvertently started a zombie apocalypse with my carelessness? What should I do? There was no way I could farm enough miracle cures for everyone I’d gotten infected. There was a mass cure spell in the game, but that only worked on poison and other minor status effects. From what I’d read on the forums, it didn’t do anything to the fish zombies.

“What do we do…?” I whimpered, realizing just how much I had screwed up.

‘The cure lies in the beast’s stomach.’

That was the reason. That was why we needed to fight the octopus boss monster with our real bodies. Because as game characters, the boss would simply disappear and leave behind random loot when defeated. But if we went there as our real selves, then just like with the skeletons, its corpse would be left behind intact and we could get… whatever it was that we needed from its stomach.

Was that really the only way, though? I couldn’t stand a chance against it with my game character and the real me was a lot weaker. We would all die without a doubt.

“Hey, it’s fine! No problem!” Frank tried to reassure me, despite his own panic. “Casey can just spawn us some anti-zombie virus magical tools in her world, and then we can bring them here and everything will be fine!”

“I can’t do that.” Casey shook her head. “I told you. My magic system is very specific and intentional. I would need to know the details of how the virus works to design something specifically against it.”

“Okay, no problem! We’ll just analyze the virus or whatever and then you can make the thing!”

 Casey bit her lip.

“It won’t work. Even if we did all of that, I couldn’t use the thing here on Earth.”

“Why not?!” Frank shouted, his voice finally tipping to hysteric.

“Because you can only use magic in the other world!”

Frank stared at Casey for a moment.

“But… Wi used magic when we were on our date.”

Casey’s head snapped to him.

“What? How? You can’t use magic here. You need to absorb mana from the surroundings first to use magic and this world doesn’t… have…”

An understanding seemed to dawn on Casey in an odd deja vu to what had happened to me just a minute ago.

“Oh… The mana flowed through the portal to Earth,” Casey said, her voice weak. “The portal has been open for more than three days straight… Earth must be full of mana now.”

Frank and I exchanged a look.

“That’s… uh… good?” Frank tried.

“No, it’s not! If there’s mana in the world now, then anyone can use magic if they figure out how to! It’s going to completely change the laws of physics of the real world!”

Oh…

By simply opening the second portal, I might have also caused a massive upheaval on Earth, not just in the other world. Why… Why hadn’t I ever considered something like this could have happened?

“I’m so stupid! How did I not realize this?! I designed the magic system! I should have known!”

“Okay, okay. No need to panic! You can just make a cheat tool for that too, right? Some kind of mana vacuum to suck up all the mana that’s on Earth now?”

Casey bit her lip and frowned.

“I… could do that, yeah. And unless a lot of people have already absorbed mana into themselves, it should solve the issue.” She slowly nodded as she thought about it. “Okay, here’s the plan then. We need to figure out the details of how exactly the zombie virus works. Then, I’ll create the cure, bring it to Earth, and use it, and after I’m done, I’ll use the other tool to erase as much mana from Earth as possible.” She looked at me. “And then you close the portal. And everytime you open it, someone needs to clean the mana from Earth again.”

“Okay… Okay. We’ll do that.” I swallowed. “But in the worst case scenario, we have to be prepared to go fight the octopus boss anyway. From the hints I read about, it’s the key to the cure for the plague.”

“Right, okay. So now we just–”

The bell rang, interrupting Frank. He looked to the side, eyeing the teacher’s front desk for a moment before turning back to us.

“Hey, stopping a zombie apocalypse is a pretty good excuse for skipping school, right?”

We didn’t stay around for the next class.