I froze in place at the words. I could tell that both Cindy and Kaitlyn had read the message as well, as their complexions had gone rather quickly pale. As I watched, the timer reached zero, and at first, nothing happened.

Suddenly, I heard a loud crash in the building below us. That couldn’t have been good. I sounded like it came from the floor below us. That means that it was Mr. Garcia’s family. I knew he had some kids, and I wanted to check to see if he was okay. I hadn’t seen him since the waves started, and I kind of felt bad that I hadn’t gone to check on him. He was always nice about rent, and he charged us way less than this place was actually worth.

I started walking to the front door as a huge wave of energy swept through the house. I didn’t see it, so much as feel the raw buzzing force begin to manifest all around me. I instinctively knew that this was raw mana, the stuff that my new race was born out of. With the wave of energy, came a greater understanding of the nature of my very existence as an elemental. We were not traditional beings of flesh and blood, but creatures of raw elemental power. I wonder why? Regardless, it's pretty neato, so I can’t really complain.

Finally, the patch notes pinged into existence in the back of my mind.

 

Well, that’s interesting. And also, super foreboding. Those world bosses sound like bad news, and I’d really hate to have to encounter them. I feel really sorry for anyone who gets in their way. At least now we can start to level up.

I wonder what is going to happen to the 0.0001% of the population that didn’t get an upgrade yet? Will they be like the beta testers? Regardless, I should check my new race. The fact that I have different magic manipulation skills probably means that I am classified as a monster, and that doesn’t really feel very good. I'd like to see the changes made.

 

That actually explains a lot. I always thought that elementals are supposed to be clouds of fire, water, earth, or air. It was always weird that I was fully human to start with, but that must be my “custom race” that I got for being a beta tester.

The freedom seeker and the being of contradiction instincts are also something that I have definitely felt. Neither of those two instincts was something new to me before the change; I’ve always been a bit introverted, and I’ve always enjoyed solitude, but the race change seems to have intensified those feelings. Now that I could read the instincts section of my race, I can totally understand the way I’ve been acting.

I also seem to have forgotten something…

Right! I was on the way downstairs!

I headed to the front door, deciding that breaking into the Garcia family house through the window at the fire escape was probably a rude thing to do. I headed down the interior stairwell, stopping at the second landing. I rapped a few quick knocks on the door, calling out,” Hello? Mr. Garcia? Ms. Selena?” Ms. Selena was Mr. Garcia’s wife, and honestly, she was a bit of a looker. I have no idea how the guy landed her, but who am I to judge? They have three kids, one was only two years younger than me and in college, and the other two were in middle and elementary school.

I didn’t hear anything at first, but then I heard something scratching at the doorknob from the other side. It must be a pet dog or something.

Suddenly I heard glass breaking, followed by the noise of some kind of animal. There were monsters inside! I charged my left fist with electricity and tried the doorknob.

The knob turned, so thankfully it was unlocked. I really didn’t want to open this door to find my landlord and his family killed by monsters, but I needed to check on them to make sure they were okay. I slowly opened the door, walking through the entryway.

Inside the apartment, I found nothing. No dogs, no pets, no people. Just a big empty room. The apartment was identical to the one above, so navigating was very easy. There was no one there. In the kitchen, I saw a portable gas stove with a pot of beans over it, but nothing else was in the room. Alright, its time to activate my detective skills to see what was up.

Mr. Garcia was meticulous and clean, but the kitchen and the living room were messy. The kitchen makes sense, as that was where they were cooking, but the living room didn’t make sense at all. In the living room, I found lots of dirty clothes in piles around the room. 5, very specific piles, three adults sized, two child-sized piles. I called out again, “Mr. Garcia? Ms. Selena? Are you both okay?”

I looked down the hallway in time to see a fluffy red tail whish its way into one of the bedrooms. I cautiously walked down the hall to the room. Upon opening the door, I found foxes. Five of them, to be exact. Two were probably older, each with three tails, one seemed to be juvenile, with two tails, and the last were only pups. I guess the theory that racial changes run in families is basically confirmed at this point. It would be pretty awkward being the only antelopekin in a family of lionkins I guess. Would make family reunions weird, at the least.

“Mr. Garcia? Is that you? It’s me, Victoria. Did you… get turned into a fox?”

Struggling to not laugh at the obviously sarcastic fox glance given to me, I quickly inspected the fox that I thought was Mr. Garcia.

 

The fox opened its mouth and let out a keening whine.

I chuckled, saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t speak fox. Can you think “status”, and then when you see that page think “skills”? You might find something there that is helpful.”

I waited for about a minute while all of the foxes read through their menus. My eyes caught on the two fox pups. They were pretty cute. Is it wrong to give your landlord’s children scratches? Because those fox pups look pretty nice to pet. I’m pretty sure in some cultures it might even be rude to not do that. I mean, probably. Was it like that in Venezuela? That’s where they were originally from, right? Could I risk it?

As I was lost in thought, I almost jumped when I heard in my mind

Hello? Can you hear me Victoria?

It was Ms. Selena’s voice but streamed directly into my head.

“Is that telepathy? That’s pretty cool. Can you all use it, or just you?”

It seems that only I can use it for now. *sigh*. This is really quite inconvenient. I was concerned when the second wave didn’t transform anyone in the family. I’ve been keeping up with the neighbors, and they all changed with it. When we didn’t, I knew something was going to happen, though I certainly did not expect this. The others seem to have the skill to speak with telepathy, but they haven’t quite figured out the way to use it yet. It seems like more of an art than a science, Ms. Gale.

“Is that all you have? Or do you have more kinds of magic?”

I personally have telepathy, telekinesis, and create illusion in my magic skills section. It seems that the first two are common to all of us, but the final magic changes person to person. Or fox to fox now, I suppose. Let’s move into the living room where we can be more comfortable.

I headed out the door, and quickly trotting beside me was Ms. Selena. I took up a spot on the couch, and she hopped up beside me. While she was definitely a fox, she was closer in size to a wolf almost. Her fur looked velvety soft and was a cream white all over, while her husband’s and children had red fur and black boots, like the foxes we see in Texas.

“So, you’re a kitsune now. That’s pretty shocking. Are you all going to be okay?”

We’ll manage, I suppose. Our family are tough folk, and we have been in this store for two generations. I can still speak and move things even if I don’t have thumbs. It will just take some getting used to. I seem to be able to walk on four legs with no problem. It might be built-in muscle memory. It’s not like your changes were any less significant, though. You definitely grew a bit, and you certainly look pretty scary at first glance.

“That’s fair I suppose. Did you check your instincts in the status sheet? You can do it by checking your race.”

Instincts, you say? Hmm. It seems I have something called playful nature, and trickster. That’s going to be interesting to deal with.

“Oh, for sure. That makes a lot of sense considering your race. Kitsune are trickster foxes from Japanese folklore I believe.”

Is there anything else you can tell me about these changes? I have a few questions.

“No problem. Hey, um, do you mind if I pet you a bit?”

Well, no, not really. Generally, I would be dubious, but it seems wonderful for some reason. Might it have something to do with my new instincts…. Woah…. Yeah, right there…, nononono up a bit… yessss that’s nice.

Finally, I can try and pet them. Eventually her telepathy faded off as I started to scratch around her head and back. It was weird to think that I was scratching my landlord’s wife, but also, she was really fluffy. Maybe I could get them to lower the rent in exchange. I wonder if my new and improved ‘I do what I want’ attitude is from my instincts as well? I certainly wouldn’t have done something like this before the change. Perhaps the strangest thing of all was that I didn’t really mind thinking that my brain had been altered.

After a while, and answering a few more questions, I decided that I needed to leave. I wanted to check around the city to see if any monsters were spawning, and I wanted to make sure that everyone I knew was in a safe place. I headed upstairs back to my apartment, and I almost ran into Cindy and Kaitlyn on the way. They both immediately looked relieved when they saw me but were confused about why it had taken almost an hour to make sure the Garcia’s were okay.

After explaining the situation and telling them that I got sidetracked petting the landlord’s wife (which they thought was hilarious and took me a few seconds to realize the double entendre), we headed back upstairs and sat down together in the living room.

As we sat, Cindy immediately started talking.

“I would like to sincerely apologize for getting mad earlier, Vic. Kaitlyn told me what you did. That was a very brave thing, saving her from those bandits, and I am extremely proud of you. I’m angry that you got hurt, but I think I’m glad that I have a friend that Is willing to save lives regardless of the danger.”

I just nodded. I suddenly began to go over the events of the day, and I realized how terrible the things I had seen were. I had a large amount of disconnect from it when I was seeing it for the first time, but the knowledge that I had just killed five people really hit home. I didn’t weep for them, for they were scum who really deserved what they got, but nevertheless, I began to tear up. The terror and fear of the run through the forest, and the fight against the bandits. The burning bodies, and the countless destroyed families. It all hit home, and I found myself leaning against Cindy’s shoulder, just trying to take it all in.

I decided that if I was even in that situation again, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. There is no way that I would allow reckless evil like that to propagate. In this changing reality, taking a moral stand was important. I don’t think I could actively go out and about saving people for a living, but I would definitely put my fist through the face of evil whenever I got the chance.

---

Once I had unpacked all of the chaos in my mind, I sat with Cindy and Kaitlyn and waited for Taylor to get back. She was out with her band members, and I wanted to make sure she was safe before I went out exploring or gathering resources again. We spent our time talking about our races and about what inspect had been able to turn up as it leveled up more. It turns out that I was the only one who was technically considered a monster, as opposed to a race. It seems that the classification between the two was a bit of a misnomer, and was sort of a ‘you know it when you see it’ kind of thing.

I had both Cindy and Kaitlyn use their magics so I could see the difference. In Cindy’s magic spell list, she actually only had three abilities. Those were charming visage, which was the charm skill she got me with before, flight, and rune magic. The rune magic allowed her to make spells of her own design. My spells were innate, but hers seemed to be based on the runic system. She could technically make spells for any school, but the ones that were the most powerful were fire, charm, and illusion spells. I suppose that made sense, given that she was a Lesser Red Fey.

Kaitlyn’s magic ability, inertia control, was more similar to mine, but she only had a single magic skill. It seems like in most fiction beastkin showed particularly strong physical abilities, and that trope seemed to be fairly correct. Aside from natural magics that they had inherently, they were largely incapable of more complex magics except in very particular circumstances.

I went ahead and shared some information about myself with her as well, explaining how my magic worked, as well as what I had discovered about my character archetype and instincts. Both Cindy and Kaitlyn both had instincts as well, but where I had two different ones that seemed pretty vague and powerful, theirs were more like quirks.

Cindy apparently has the Fey Fascination instinct, which made her really enjoy looking at shiny and sparkly things. A strange, if relatively harmless instinct. Kaitlyn had an instinct-based around the social aspect of Cheetahs, called Social Animal. If she wasn’t around others, she tended to get depressed. That sounded rather similar to mine, so I could understand the issues inherent. When I asked her about her character archetype, she deeply blushed, and her ears started to lay flat on her head. I guess it’s not a very good one. She didn’t want to say, but I had my suspicions based on the way she was acting.

“Kaitlyn, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you, by chance, a Tsundere?”

She immediately shot back with an embarrassed, “Sh – Shut up, idiot!”

That was all the explanation I needed. I’m so sorry, Kaitlyn. So sorry. And here I was feeling weird about being pigeonholed into a position as Clint Eastwood. Damn, that’s rough.

Thankfully the conversation ended, as I heard a banging on the door.

Quickly rising to see who it was, I opened the door a bit and came face to face with Nick Lee, one of the members of Taylor's band, and he did not look good at all. He was bleeding from cuts and scratches all over. Looking behind him, I saw Trevor Banks, the drummer of the band. He was holding in his arms a bruised and unconscious Taylor. Oh no. And I'd just got home from thrashing evildoers.