With the bag filled with the gummy cockroaches in hand, I opened the door to my apartment, walked in, and closed it behind me, before letting out a sigh.

“Mom?” I tried calling out just to double-check whether she was home already.

No response.

“Alright…”

Before even removing my shoes, I closed my eyes, reached into myself, and called upon the true form transformation. Just as Elyssa had said, I could now do it naturally even without her help. I had no idea how or why. It really didn’t make any sense, but I didn’t care.

One body-quivering pulse later and the transformation was done. I opened my eyes, felt myself existing in the not-true form, and sighed again, this time in relief.

The day with my friends had been fun. Very fun. We’d chatted, eaten gummy cockroaches, given ideas to Casey for her novel, and generally just hung around. Unfortunately, even this relaxation technique couldn’t tear my mind away from my not-true form. It got to the point where I’d basically run off the second we’d said our goodbyes, just to get home sooner and be able to transform.

“Jeez… It’s like I’m an addict…” I whispered to myself, still standing at the entrance door.

That aside, even though I wanted to, I hadn’t actually told them about the portals. I’d just mentioned an adventure, and they had agreed to free up their Sunday afternoon to humor me.

I couldn’t outright tell them about the portals. Not without immediate proof. I didn’t want them looking at me like I’d gone crazy. I didn’t want a repeat of…

I shook my head to rid myself of these thoughts and proceeded to take off my shoes before heading to my room. After changing, I looked at the clock and discerned that I had about an hour before Mom returned from work.

I sort of wanted to go visit Elyssa again, and I also wanted to test the combat capabilities of this form but didn’t think I had enough time to make it worth it. Instead, I settled for browsing the net in my comfortable fox form. Not just random stuff like usual, though. I went ahead and opened up the RLO’s wiki right away, clicking through links, hoping to find some hints about the true nature of the game. Maybe even something to explain the portals.

I found nothing. Everything pointed to Rogue Life Online being just a normal VRMMO game. Just like every other one. Nothing special about it.

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I couldn’t help but admire just how well the devs had covered their tracks. Seriously, what was this all about? Why had they set up a way for random people to invade another world through customizable dolls? What was their grand plan in all of this?

My search eventually led me to the Golden Woods page, and from there to the old woman living there, Elyssa. That name… wasn’t mentioned anywhere on the entire page. Elyssa had said she didn’t usually give out her name, but still…

For a moment, I thought about hopping into the public editor and adding her name in, but immediately felt like that would be betraying Elyssa’s trust and breaching her privacy. Others didn’t need to know. They only knew her as the woman who taught the true form skill anyway.

I continued browsing, ultimately finding pages about all the new content added two days ago. The new area was this odd ethereal place that was sometimes underwater and sometimes not. It was generally a hostile area with various oceanic monsters with ruins of Roman-inspired civilization being the main decoration.

And in the middle… a colosseum.

If you performed a specific set of actions, you could summon a new boss to fight there. It was a giant octopus-like creature with a massive eye in the middle.

“Oh…” I whispered.

In other words, it was the monster me and my friends had fought in my dream. Odd. Was there any significance? Something special about it? Why would we fight it?

I scrolled down to the drops section and found usual common drops, some rare drops in the form of a new set of armor designed after the Romans but with fish fins on it, as well as an ultra-rare soaked journal lore item.

“Hmm…”

Maybe the lore item revealed the grand plans of the evil developers… Or maybe I was just overthinking it. I’d told my friends we would go on an adventure, so maybe I was going to invite them to fight that thing.

Should I, though? Just because I’d seen a vision of it didn’t mean I had to, right? Or would it happen no matter what I did?

“Ugh, the precog paradox…” I said with a sigh.

The softness of my voice momentarily shocked me before I remembered what form I was in. It was weird how normal I felt being in this form. So much so that I’d forgotten I had transformed.

I clicked through back to Elyssa’s page, and then to the true form skill to find out more about that. But again, nowhere on that page did it mention anything about it being addictive. Just that some players preferred to stay in it permanently.

Obviously. It was just a game. Even if VR could simulate all the senses, making something in the game purposefully addictive would definitely be illegal.

Still…

I wanted to get in contact with the devs somehow. But if they had the power to invade other worlds… who knows what they could do to me? I had to be careful about this. Take it slow. Contact them without arousing suspicion.

As I plunged deeper into thought, planning on how to contact the devs, I heard the lock clicking and the door opening in the main hall.

Mom was here.

With a sigh, I braced myself, undid the transformation, and…

I immediately felt horrible. I didn’t even want to call out to her like this. I just wanted to transform back.

Why?

What was wrong with me?