Monday morning. The bane of my existence.

But unlike every other Monday of my life, this one felt distinctly different.

The weekend had been packed to the brim with questions, discovery, and even more questions. We’d had so many ideas and theories about everything, that I didn’t even know what to think anymore. It was so overwhelming, I decided to stop theorizing until we got more concrete information or at least a lead.

On my way to the school via a bus, I took notice of the portal near the grocery store again, and couldn’t help but wonder what lay inside it. Would it really lead to a completely different world? Thinking about it, that would imply that RLO was a real world invaded by players, rather than a mere game world turned into a real one as Casey theorized.

With those thoughts in mind, I arrived at school, made it to the classroom, and was greeted by my friends already inside.

“Ah, hello there, fellow conspiracy organization member.”

As usual, Frank’s first sentence made me roll my eyes.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Well…” Casey looked around, huddled on her desk, gestured at us to lean in, and whispered, “I did some research yesterday. So far, nothing weird or unusual about the developers. All of them seem to be normal people with normal backgrounds.” She shrugged. “But I’ll keep digging. Maybe I’ll find something.”

“Hmm, those dastardly villains covered their tracks well, didn’t they?” Frank rubbed his chin before his expression turned into a frown. “Anyway, I did some research of my own.”

“You did?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, about you.”

“Me?” I frowned.

“Well, about people like you, at least. I guess.” He scratched his chin. “Transgender people.”

That took me by surprise.

“Yeah, you know I felt quite awkward yesterday. Constantly stepping on landmines I didn’t even see, so I figured I should educate myself.”

“Uh… That’s… cool?”

Why did he think I was transgender?

“Y’know, even though I spent yesterday afternoon reading about it, I still can’t wrap my head around it. Why would anyone want to be… well, uh…” He glanced at Casey. “Why would anyone want such a drastic change?”

“And having bull horns isn’t a drastic change?” Casey raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that’s different! It’s like… adding something. Upgrading yourself. Not changing something that’s already there… You know?”

I had no idea what to say. Not even I understood why I preferred the other form, let alone having to think of an explanation for Frank.

Luckily, the bell’s ringing saved me from having to come up with something to say. We broke off and took our seats.

As soon as I did, my mind went back to what Frank had said before then. Transgender people. I’d heard about them in passing. I knew about them. But was I trans too? It wasn’t as if I always dreamed of being a girl or anything. My fox form was just… better… nicer… less rigid? I didn’t have a good word for it.

A teacher calling out to me shook me from my thoughts and made me concentrate on the class again. I opted to shelve these thoughts for later. Maybe I could read up on the internet about it.

After the first class, we had some time for another short chat. I remembered what I wanted to tell them.

“So, yesterday, after you left, I logged into the game and prepared proper equipment for us,” I began, swerving from the previous topic.

“Oh, neat! Free stuff! Don’t mind if I do!” Frank sniggered. “Just kidding. I’m fine, I can get my own stuff. Casey never played the game though, so we should get something for her.”

“Yeah, I know. Anyway… other than that, I also had a chat with my clanmates. They, uh, played through the new content and got a rare lore item drop.”

“Oh?”

“It mentioned some survivors from a flooded world coming over to this one… err, the game world, I mean. So I was thinking, maybe there was one of the portals over there, and that’s the reason why we’ll supposedly fight the boss. To get to that portal.”

Frank frowned whilst crossing his arms, while Casey put a finger to her chin.

“What would be so important in that flooded world?” Casey mused.

“I’m not sure…” I shrugged. “But, uh, I figured that since there were no reports of players seeing the portal, someone must have closed it behind them.”

“Oh…” Casey’s eyes lit up.

“A lead! Finally, we get to meet other alien esper demon foxgirls from another dimension who can see the portals!”

I facepalmed.

“Although, there’s a problem.” Frank went back to being serious again. “ See, I read about the new update, and we would need something to breathe underwater when the bubble materializes or whatever. I didn’t do the quest for that and I heard it’s really long…” He stopped for a second, seemingly coming to a realization. “Wait, you can sense the portals from afar with your radar thingy, right?”

“Hmm? Yeah.” I nodded.

“Riiight… I forgot. Well then, for now, we can just circle the thing and you can use your sonar to triangulate it or whatever and confirm whether it’s even there first, how about that?”

“Right… Yeah, let’s do that.”

With our objective confirmed, we suffered through the rest of the school day until we were finally let go.

As agreed, Frank would go home and log into the game normally, while I would go through the portal at home. We were going to go to the new area together while Casey continued her digging.

I lived closer to the school than Frank, so I got home sooner. After transforming, I decided to use the time waiting for Frank to do some research of my own.

I opened up my browser and typed “transgender” into the search engine.