Michael

Waking up the next morning was rough. Even with Amber’s earth magic to make the ground softer, it was still hard and uncomfortable compared to the mattress he was used to. He then had a mini panic attack when he saw his body, and then he remembered all the corpses he had seen yesterday. He ended up just sitting on the ground and holding his head for a while.

Fortunately, Luna’s habit of going back to sleep for a little bit longer after he had woken up continued even in a place like this. With Amber’s help, he was able to collect himself by the time his daughter was fully awake.

After a bland breakfast, they found out the situation. Some of the people from Earth had talked with the soldiers all through the night to figure out as much as they could.

People from the temple in the neighboring kingdom had received an oracle a couple weeks ago about the Praexoent Empire enacting a strange ritual. It had apparently taken weeks for them to pull off, though the players only experienced the end result of it, which was their mass abduction.

The gods themselves got involved, and managed to temporarily delay that last part from completing for long enough that the soldiers were able to arrive and deal with everyone at the base, however. And because the researchers didn't want to get caught up in their own ritual, they had sealed it off in an isolated area underground.

The news was somehow both better and worse than Michael had thought it would be. They had been helped out by actual gods, but that in itself was also terrifying.

After going through the documents and materials in the base they were in, it was revealed that the Empire had discovered the existence of other worlds centuries ago, and have been doing experiments related to that ever since.

According to the soldiers, the Empire has always been incredibly ambitious and eager to wage war. So if they are to be believed, then the game version of the Empire was all just propaganda to indoctrinate the players before they even arrived.

It’s impossible to use magic to manipulate minds, but because Earth had no mana whatsoever, that meant there was nothing to interfere with what would normally have been impossible. That still didn’t mean the Empire could just control people to do whatever they wanted, however.

What they did was influence people on Earth into creating the game. People would create a form of attachment to the game—their characters—would grow their power and skills, and all of that would then be transferred over.

In the real version of Torneltha, they prepared tons and tons of ingredients that would form into living, breathing people. Those ingredients formed into the characters the players had designed, and the experience and familiarity with the game turned into real mana they could actually use.

The Empire had planned to spend much longer doing all this in order to make a massive army and enslave them, but the Kingdom’s advancement in the ongoing war forced them to rush the project. They only got one server's worth of people instead of every single player who was logged in at the time.

They may have been doing experiments for centuries, but it was only in the few decades that they ramped it up, as enough discoveries had been made to make their plans possible.

So when the Empire then took the next step of abducting people, it was extreme enough that the gods were able to notice it. The damage had already been done, but the gods put up a barrier between worlds to prevent it from happening a second time, and alerted the Kingdom about this hidden research facility.

Part of the ritual included putting information of numerous languages into the players' heads while they were between worlds, and there was another part that helped people with non-human anatomy adjust to their different bodies.

There were some Awakened players among them who benefited the most from that, but the ritual had nothing to do with anyone's gender identity, meaning Michael's mind hadn't been altered.

I can’t even imagine if I had been an Awakened player instead, though. Suddenly going from being a human in one world to an animal in another sounds like a nightmare.

Michael awkwardly asked one of the soldiers if magic to change one’s sex existed, and was disappointed to learn that it didn’t.

And according to an oracle someone had received in the middle of the night, it was impossible to return everyone home. The space between worlds had been heavily damaged by the Empire, and had thus been sealed off by the gods.

The final piece of news was that the soldiers were going to start taking all the former players to Elsanth, a city in their kingdom. They didn’t have the manpower or resources to bring everyone at once, and Elsanth wasn’t very big, so they were going to do it in groups of 100.

 

———

 

Michael was sitting by himself in the grass outside. Luna and Amber were nearby, but still far enough away so he could be alone for a bit.

He had formed a mirror made of ice and had been staring into it for some time now. Emotionlessly, he muttered to his reflection, “So, this is Michelle. Ice elf, widow, and mother of one.”

He stared for a while longer, then huffed angrily and chucked his mirror into the distance. He heard it shatter, but had already stopped looking by then.

After stewing in his anger for a while longer, a voice behind him asked, “How are you holding up?”

Michael turned around and saw Sarah, the tigerkin woman from yesterday. “Oh, Sarah. I’m… doing pretty shit, I suppose. This whole situation is just so horrifying and appalling.
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“This body feels normal, and that normality feels wrong. Those assholes took us from home and fucked with our bodies. I know that everyone else here is just as furious as I am and also wants to go home, but I’m just stuck in my rage. That’s why I’m sitting here alone, so I can cool off.”

Sarah sat down next to him. “Yeah, I’m absolutely furious, too. I have my family and friends. No kids or anything like that, but still people I care about. I have my career as an author that I was actually making a living off of.
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“Torneltha was just a game that I played for maybe a few hours a week. It hasn’t hit me that this is real yet. I’ll probably be a sobbing mess by tomorrow.”

Michael nodded solemnly, and after a few minutes of silence, asked, “Why did you decide to talk to me?”

“I remembered your situation and figured you probably haven’t told many people about it. Your… wife(?) over there is distracting your daughter, so I decided to take the opportunity.”

“Amber is my friend and coworker.”

“Oh. So…”

“No. I don’t have a wife anymore. She was my only family besides Luna, but she was killed by a drunk driver last year. Even worse, the bastard who did it was a cop, so they let him off easy.”

“Damn, that’s really awful.”

He sighed. “It’s not your fault. Sorry if that was too much complaining. I’m just a whole lot of negative emotions right now, and I’m trying hard to not snap at people.
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“Oh… You know what, saying it out loud did help a bit, actually. I would’ve talked with Amber about the sex change thing, but I didn’t want to worry Luna and I don’t have anyone else here I trust to watch over her, so I wasn’t going to separate them so I could talk to her alone.”

“I’m glad I could help. Would you want to travel together when we leave this place? The only person I know here is Victor, but I get the feeling that he’s going to just go off on his own somewhere.”

“I think I’d be fine with that, but let’s talk with Amber about it first. Where is Victor, anyway?”

She shrugged. “He was a support player in the game, so he decided to go and do more support stuff now. It hasn’t even been a day, but he seems to be thriving somehow. Though, I think part of that might just be him distracting himself.”

“Hmm. Well, let’s go chat with Amber.”

Seeing them approaching, Amber asked, “Hey. Are you doing any better?”

“Hi, Mom!” Luna jumped up and hugged him, then went back to playing with her water magic.

“Hey, Luna,” Michael said. Replying to Amber, he said, “Somewhat. Sarah knows my situation, so she was able to talk with me about it. Well, more like I just ranted a little, but she listened.”

“I’m glad,” Amber said. “Thank you, Sarah. She was becoming a curmudgeon.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “I was not becoming a curmudgeon. I was becoming a grump.”

“No, not a grump. A sourpuss, perhaps.”

“A grouch!” Sarah interjected with a smile on her face.

“Ah, another woman who understands the finer things in life.”

Michael remarked, “Making fun of me is one of the finer things, is it?”

“Of course! And I have to find other things to make fun of now that your colossal schnoz isn’t on your face anymore.”

“’Colossal schnoz’?” Sarah questioned.

Michael explained, “I had a massive nose; like a mountain turned on its side and attached to my face.”

That got her laughing. When she calmed down, she asked the question she had originally meant to when she came over with Michael. “Oh yeah, so, I was wondering if I could travel with the three of you to Elsanth? Victor will probably go with someone else, leaving me by myself, and I’d be more comfortable if I had someone I could trust.”

Amber asked, “Oh? Why us? You probably talked with other people more than with us, right?”

“I did, but that first conversation I had with you makes me think you’re probably decent people. Given how chill you were about the topic of trans people, I thought you might be okay with someone aroace traveling with you.
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“We have no idea how accurate this world is to the game yet, and I would just be more comfortable around someone else who was queer, or at least okay with queer people.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. I’m gay, by the way.”

Thinking out loud to himself, Michael wondered, “Do I count as queer now?”

Amber replied, “Given the situation with your body, I’d say yeah, probably.”

“…Huh. It’s kind of weird, how normal it feels. The weirder part is that I suddenly have a new label attached to me.”

The two women both shrugged, used to dealing with labels.

“So I guess I count as trans then, too, if… if this really is my new normal.”

Amber said, “It’s definitely an odd case, but I’d say why not? It’s not like you’re legally required to experience dysphoria and medically transition to count as trans.”

Turning to Michael, Sarah asked, “Since we’re talking about this stuff and there’s no one else in earshot right now, are you still okay with your name and pronouns? You can change them whenever you want.”

He had to think about it for a minute before replying, “I guess it’s fine? I don’t mean that in like a ‘just passively accepting it’ kind of way. It’s more like it genuinely feels fine, but my brain is feeling whiplash from the difference and hasn’t caught up to reality yet.
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“The part where I’m confused is that the ritual apparently only adjusted for non-human anatomies, like tails and other stuff, but not gender identities. So that leaves me with a whole bunch of questions about myself.”

“Well, you’ve got plenty of time, and you can talk to us about it whenever,” Amber replied.

“So you’re okay with me coming with you?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah! Given what you said about wanting to hang out with other queer people, I totally agree. And you seem nice so far.”

Sarah smiled, and the three adults all sat down.

So, I guess I really am Michelle now. That’s not going to feel real for a looong time.