Hopping Celestial Fox

I glared at the damn scrolls in annoyance.

‘Like wind. Become weightless. Move fast. Defy the flow of time.’

How the heck did that help at all? The text on the scroll just described what happened when the skill was used. It didn’t say anything about how to achieve it, though!

“Yeah… I dunno, this isn’t helpful at all,” Frank agreed.

“I guess it’s impossible for us to learn it after all…” I grumbled.

“Hmm… Hey, hold on. Do you still have that paper with your spooky name on it?”

I blinked.

“Uh, yeah? Why?”

“Eh, I thought it might somehow help? They’re both weird written magical things, right?”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, but complied nonetheless. I opened the desk drawer where I’d put the paper and pulled it out. Looking at it again, it felt odd how I seemed to understand more of it than before now. After actually saying my true name earlier today, the text somehow made more sense despite its weirdness.

I looked back at the skill scroll.

“Right… So what now?”

“Uh… I don’t know? Magic?” Frank shrugged.

I looked at him deadpan before heaving a sigh and sitting down. I put the piece of paper and the scroll next to each other and tried to see whether I could figure something out from this. I had my doubts, but maybe the scroll hid more than just text in a different language, after all.

Unfortunately, no matter how much I looked at it, despite them both being ‘weird written magical things’ as Frank had put it, they were nothing alike. The skill scrolls were seemingly just text on a paper. My name, on the other hand, contained… more. More meaning, more purpose, more life.

I shook my head.

“I don’t think this is gonna lead anywhere.”

“Aw man, I thought it would do something…” Frank grumbled as he pouted at the ceiling. Then his eyes moved to look out from my window. “Ah, dammit. It’s getting pretty late, isn’t it? I should probably get going.”

“Right, yeah…” I sighed.

“Hey, can I take this thing with me? I’ll keep trying to figure it out!” He pointed at the stone skin scroll.

I shrugged and nodded, not seeing any harm in that. I also lent him a plastic bag to carry the scroll in since he hadn’t brought anything with him.

“Alright then… So… school tomorrow?” he asked before he left.

I pursed my lips and thought about it for a moment, but ultimately shook my head.

“We probably should, but… I don’t think I can…” I had been trying to mostly distract myself from it, but the guilt of what we had done was still eating at me. Going to school and pretending that everything was fine this soon would be too much.

“Well, alright.” He shrugged. “How about I come back in the morning and we can continue preparing for the inevitable fulfillment of the prophecy?”

“Sure,” I replied, my tone dry.

With that, he left and I was alone once more. I returned to my room and then just… stood there for a bit, staring at all the smuggled items still thrown around the place.

I usually liked being home alone, but today, it felt suffocating. Part of me felt like going to bed right away, but I also didn’t feel like sleeping whatsoever.

What to do?

Maybe I could play RLO for a bit more and grind some more gear for us? Having more ruby seeds and phoenix amulets could never hurt. I could get myself a better katana…

Or should I try to work on figuring out the skill scrolls? Being able to use skills would be amazing, even if they were only the low level ones.

Or maybe…

I glanced at the portal floating in space, humming with electricity, and remembered the rules Mom had set for me when opening and entering portals.

I thought about it for a moment and then nodded to myself.

I was just going to check something and then I would come back.

I stepped up, grabbed the portal, and opened it. After quickly scanning the surroundings, I stepped through and closed the portal behind me. From then on, it only took a couple of minutes to get to my destination.

Elyssa’s hut stood in the not-so-secret location, looking identical to how I’d always remembered it. The only difference would be the occupant.

There were a couple of people milling around the hut’s front door though. I frowned as I hid myself behind a tree and perked up my ears to listen to their conversations. I could hear some annoyed whines and a few grumps of relief. They all talked about how annoying it was that the devs had randomly deleted the old woman NPC and it had taken them until the update to replace her.

Oh. Uh… huh.

I hadn’t even thought about how it would have looked from a normal player’s perspective. From their point of view, Elyssa had just disappeared one day, hadn’t she? And with her gone, the players couldn’t learn the true form skill. And now that they could again, there was a queue.

A few minutes of waiting later, I heard the hut’s door creak open followed by an unknown voice repeating Elyssa’s old NPC lines in a much more upbeat tone before the door closed again.

“So weird to see the tutorial mage here…” someone mumbled.

“Why did they get rid of the old NPC anyway?” someone else asked.

“No clue, dude.”

Tutorial mage…? Was there a mage named Kate in the tutorial? I couldn’t remember. It had been a while since I’d done it. I would have to look it up.

Then a different conversation caught my attention.

“Yeah, because of the fucking Divine Surge thing,” I heard someone growl.

“Shit, man… That’s so unlucky. I hope she recovers,” another voice placated.

My stomach tightened. I hadn’t heard all of their conversation, but I could tell what it was about.

I suddenly didn’t want to stay any longer. With all these people here, I probably wouldn’t get to meet Kate without being seen anytime soon anyway.

As I prepared to leave, I heard something that made me stop in my tracks.

“No, I’m telling you! A friend of mine saw them! There was this foxgirl, a guy with horns and huge sunglasses, and some other hooded person with a staff!”

My eyes went wide and my breathing stopped for a moment.

Someone had seen us?! When?!

“Well, no. They shot down their drone and destroyed the camera. But I think they are the ones who caused the Divine Surge!”

Right. The people behind the drone had seen us. And they had correctly concluded that we had been the ones to cause the surge. Crap… They didn’t have evidence though, so it wasn’t that bad, right?

Someone else snorted. “You know Phil and his conspiracy theories. Just because some weird shit happened doesn’t automatically mean there’s foxgirls and magic involved.”

I relaxed. Just a tiny bit.

Even if we had been seen, with no evidence other than their words, it would ultimately be just a rumor. Not everyone would believe it.

I let out a sigh and with a last glance at the hut, I sprinted back to my portal. On my way there, the guilt returned with vengeance. Being relieved that people didn’t know it had been us felt like we were criminals getting away with murder. Technically, we were criminals getting away with murder. We had caused deaths and panic all over the world. I had no doubts that some people would call us international terrorists.

By the time I finally returned to my portal, opened it, and stumbled back inside my room, my thoughts had reached a very dark point in their spiral.

I mentally zoned out as I took a shower, brushed my teeth, and threw myself into my bed afterwards.