Hopping Celestial Fox

We snuck out of school and headed to Casey’s place right away. On our way there, I called Mom and explained the major fuckup… the two major fuckups I had committed.

“Are you sure about the… the zombie plague?” Mom asked. “It could still be a normal flu going around. Have you checked if the other kids also have the scales?”

We… hadn’t. In hindsight, we really should have done that before we’d started panicking.

“No… We’re going to check that… but there’s still the problem of mana flooding our world, so we’re going to Casey’s place for now. We’ll need to go inside the world anyway.”

“Alright then… I’m coming over too. I’ll help in any way I can.”

“Okay, see you then.”

The call ended and I turned to the others. Frank was already dialing someone on his own phone. The other person picked up after a couple of rings.

“Hey, dude! I heard you were sick with the flu or something. You feeling alright?” Frank said with his usual cheery tone. I could tell from his expression that he was worried though.

“Mhmm, mmm, oh?” The cheer in his tone didn’t go away but his expression fell just a little as he turned to look me in the eye. “Some weird slimy blue spots, you say?”

I grit my teeth.

We had been right, after all.

“Well, that sounds nasty… I hope you get better soon. If not, I’ll bring you a magic cure or something! Mmm. Heh, yeah. Alright, see you later, Ken.”

He hung up before closing his eyes, slowly breathing in, and then silently muttering, “Fuck…”

“Well… I guess we can’t really hope that Ken is the only one with the scales, all things considered,” Casey declared and we gave a grim nod.

It didn’t take long for us to make it to her place. It was a good thing she lived so close to the school. If we had taken the bus, someone might have asked questions about why we weren’t at school.

Casey unlocked the door and we all filed inside before immediately heading into her room. The portal loomed ominously in its opened state. One could hardly tell that it was leaking magical energy into our world. But then again, my magical ability was awful, so there was no way I of all people would be able to tell.

Casey entered the portal and ran off to fetch Elyssa and Wi, who were probably somewhere in the castle, leaving me and Frank behind.

“So… How do we figure things out about the plague anyway?” I asked as I pulled out my phone and quickly opened up the RLO wiki on it. “The wiki doesn’t even mention that it exists. The game only hints at it.”

I frowned.

“Hmm… Well, how about we just ask the devs? They should know everything about it, right?”

I stared at Frank.

“I… doubt they’ll tell us anything. We would have to tell them the truth and somehow convince them to believe it.” I looked back to my phone and continued to scour the wiki. “Otherwise, they’ll just want to keep it secret since it’s part of the lore and whatnot.”

“Eh… I guess that’s true.” He shrugged. “I’m still gonna send them a message. Who knows? Maybe they’ll reply.”

I didn’t think It would work, but there wasn’t any reason not to try it at least.

I gave up on the wiki and went to the lorehound section of the forums instead, hoping to find something relevant among the people’s thoughts and ideas. Maybe there would be an easy way to solve this whole zombie plague thing.

From what I could gather, a lot of people theorized that the boss was the source of the ‘curse’, but other people refuted it, saying that even if you defeated the boss, none of the fish monsters got dezombified. The others argued that it was a video game so it wouldn’t make sense to delete content when someone defeated a boss.

Then it dawned on me that they were right. It was originally just a video game, so there probably wouldn’t ever be a way to cure the zombies inside the bubble ruins. 

That not only meant that we were on a time limit – we needed to cure everyone I’d infected before they turned completely – but it also probably meant that there wouldn’t be an easy way out. We either needed to figure out the plague enough for Casey to make an accurate cure or we needed to go and fight the boss with our real selves and hope that the cure really was in its stomach.

Casey finally returned through the portal with the two elven blonds in tow.

Elyssa’s expression was tight and Wi was frowning. Casey had probably filled them in already.

“We’re here. So…”

“There’s not much about the plague on the wiki or the forums. We need to figure it out ourselves…”

“Okay… Your mom had it, right? You have to know more about it, right?” Casey asked as the three stepped through the portal into her room.

“Well, not really… All I know is that Mom had headaches at first and then started growing these scales, but I gave her the cure before it could get worse.”

“If the end result is a mindless monster, then it’s safe to assume that the plague affects the mind,” Elyssa observed. “Something that protects the mind and stops the scales from growing should be enough, should it not?”

Casey frowned.

“Shielding the minds of people from outside influence is pretty straight-forward, but I need to know how the scale-growing works to prevent it.”

Wi stared at Casey before murmuring, “It’s so weird that you’re both an expert and a complete beginner at magic…”

The bell rang and I perked up.

“That’s probably Mom.”

Casey nodded and went to open the door for her.

“So… I guess we need a test subject?” Frank mused as Casey left.

I frowned.

“What do you mean…?”

“Well, how else are we supposed to figure out how the scale thing works? We need someone who’s already infected and growing them to study them or something, right?”

“I guess so… But that would mean revealing the truth to someone else.” I hummed. “And also, we’re assuming that we’re immune to the virus somehow, but what if we aren’t? What if we get infected by them?”

Frank shrugged.

“Quarantine them, then.”

“Why are we seemingly immune though?” Wi asked, her eyebrows creased. “It seems weirdly convenient.”

That was true. Why was I and everyone I was close to except my Mom immune? What did we have in common?

“We all were inside your world…” I said slowly. “Mom wasn’t…”

“I wasn’t what?” Mom asked as she and Casey entered the room. She carried a large backpack with her for some reason. I saw her briefly glance at the still-opened portal and frown.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Chrona. We’re just trying to figure out why we’re not turning into fish zombies. Renee thinks this other world has the anti-virus in the air or something.”

I glared at him in annoyance.

“I didn’t say that. It was just a thought. What else do we have in common?”

“It doesn’t matter for now,” Casey interrupted me. “We ought to figure out how the scale-growing works first.”

“Hey, maybe it does matter!” Frank argued. “What if whatever is making us immune is the key to curing everyone else?”

Casey stopped.

“I… guess so.” She frowned. “You think it’s because of something in my world then?”

“I mean, yeah. What else would it be?” Frank said with a shrug.

“But… There isn’t anything in my world in the air… except for mana.” Her eyes widened. “You think being around mana is what made us immune to the plague?”

We all stared.

“Ah, shit…” Frank groaned. “So we need to flood our world with mana to cure everyone? Wasn’t that the other thing we were trying to stop?”

“I still don’t see the problem,” Wi murmured. “Why don’t you want to have mana in your world?”

“Because this world never had mana. It’s going to cause chaos,” Casey argued.

“More chaos than letting a mind-eroding plague spread?!” Wi bit out, glaring at Casey.

Casey flinched and I couldn’t help but wince.

A moment later, Wi pursed her lips and glanced away, looking contrite.

“There is something besides our exposure to the other world’s mana,” Elyssa said, dispelling the uncomfortable silence. All attention redirected to her. “I have taught all of you the true form skill… All of you, except Mrs. Chrona here.”

I blinked.

That was true.

Wait…

“Are you… in your true form right now?” I asked, before immediately feeling like I shouldn’t have.

But Elyssa just smiled and said “I am.”

Huh…

It made sense in hindsight, but somehow, I’d never thought about it.

“Okaaay… So, the plan is to go around and teach everyone who got infected the true form?” Frank summarized. “I thought we wanted to keep everything secret, though?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure about this…” I said. “There has to be another way…”

“By the way…” Mom spoke up. “I didn’t want to say anything, since I didn’t think it was a big deal, but now…”

I suddenly felt uneasy.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

“Even though I drank half the miracle cure this morning… I’ve been getting light headaches again.”

My expression fell.

Again?! The miracle cure hadn’t been enough?!

Maybe I should have let her drink the whole thing instead of just half…

“Ah shit… Well, at least now we have a test subject…?” Frank remarked to the annoyance of all of us.