I blinked my eyes open. It was morning again.

I wasn’t wearing my pajamas and I was still in my not-true form.

Huh…

I must have fallen asleep at some point. It had gotten quite late by the time I ended up revealing everything to Mom, after all. And with her needing time to digest everything and me crying my heart out again…

Shaking that thought off, I got up and got changed. I eyed the closed portal in the middle of the room for a second with a bit less trepidation than yesterday. A good night of sleep definitely helped my mental state. I still wasn’t eager to jump in and go on another adventure – especially since I’d promised Mom not to open the portals anymore – but at least I didn’t flinch from the thing like I used to.

Ignoring the portal for now, I headed for the door, walking around it despite being in my not-true form and not having to worry about getting shocked.

And then I had an odd thought.

I stopped, looked over my shoulder at the portal, and pursed my lips. After a moment of hesitation, I walked back to it.

I wasn’t planning on going inside or even opening it, so…

I clenched my fists, took a breath, and then walked through the closed portal as if there was only empty air.

Well, almost.

I had the same familiar electric feeling as when I usually grabbed the thing to open it. Just a bit more… ethereal. Somehow.

I turned around and reached my hand toward it. My hand phased through, only giving me hints of the same feeling every time it passed as I waved it around.

I frowned.

This time, I held out my hand, and tried to grab the portal. I instantly found purchase on it without any problem. As if the portal had suddenly materialized just to let me grab it.

I narrowed my eyes and tried to will the portal to stop being physical again.

And it worked. From one moment to the next, my hand slipped through the portal and wasn’t holding anything anymore, albeit the portal’s odd feeling remained.

I stood there for a few seconds, before sighing to myself with a shrug.

On one hand, it made sense that the portals weren’t really physical, since nobody but me could interact with them. On the other hand… this was incredibly weird.

Done with my impromptu experiment, I finally left my room, and headed to the kitchen, where Mom was already making some toast for breakfast. I held an internal wince, remembering that I hadn’t ever washed the dishes from yesterday despite promising to do so.

When Mom spotted me, her eyes went wide for a moment, before she gave me a stiff smile.

“Ah, Renee. Good morning.”

“Good morning… Um…” I replied as I idly swished my tail behind me, feeling a bit awkward.

“Sorry, honey… Still processing everything.”

“Right, yeah… Me too…” I agreed as I sat down at the table.

Even if I wasn’t going to let it get to me, I still wondered who that mysterious person in Mom’s dream had been. Based on what they had said, they were apparently my parent…? And not just that. If they had said ‘our child’ then that either implied that my dad wasn’t my real dad… Or that I had another unknown parent who was this mysterious person’s partner.

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It reminded me of Dad’s weird family tree. It was obviously fabricated, but I had no idea what that meant. Had the mysterious person messed with the records? Had they been Dad…? No, Mom would have recognized him if that was the case. But then who were they? And how did Dad and his family tree fit into everything? If Dad’s entire family had been fabricated then… What if Dad had been a fabrication as well?

Had Dad ever been a real person?

…

My thoughts were going way too off the rails. Dad obviously was real. We still had all the photos and mementos from him.

It was just frustrating that I didn’t know anything. Moreover, ‘not having much time left’ also implied that this mysterious person had died soon after Mom’s dream.

So unlike with the portals, I had no leads, nothing to experiment on, no one to ask.

Mom placed a plate with some toast in front of me alongside some peanut butter and strawberry jam. I idly began spreading the jam on it as my mind kept running loops around the mysterious person in Mom’s dreams.

“By the way, Renee… I was meaning to ask. How exactly did you change like this?” She gestured at my fox ears. “You said something about magic?”

“Uh, yeah… Or, actually, no. This is different from magic. It’s a skill that anyone can learn. Casey and Frank can also transform like this,” I explained. “It’s called true form and it’s… Well, Elyssa said that this isn’t actually my true form, but it still feels better when I’m like this, so…”

“I see…” She slowly nodded as she chewed on her toast. “And this Elyssa is…?”

“One of the NPCs from the game… But I guess she isn’t an NPC anymore. We heard that the devs were going to… um, fix her, so we brought her across to Earth and now she’s living with Casey for the time being.”

Mom stared at me for a moment before letting out a sigh and rubbing her eyes.

“Didn’t you say you figured things out only a week ago? Just how much has happened since then?”

I winced.

“... A lot,” I admitted, feeling contrite.

She stayed silent for a moment, emotions battling on her face. Finally, she hummed thoughtfully and looked up at the kitchen’s clock.

“Well, I’m gonna be home for the week, so how about I call the school and tell them you aren’t feeling well so that we have time to talk about everything?”

I blinked in surprise and was about to say she didn’t need to do that, but she knew me too well and continued before I could protest.

“You broke down crying yesterday,” she gently reminded me. “I think that counts as not feeling well.”

“I…” I sighed, my ears drooping. “I guess you’re right.”

Today was Friday, so I didn’t really mind an extended weekend. And I did want to properly tell Mom about everything.

With my agreement, she went ahead and called the school after we were done with our breakfast. In the meantime, I went back to my room to grab my phone and catch the others up on what had happened last night.

To my surprise, there were some unread messages.

Apparently, Elyssa had taught Wi the true form skill and now she had wings. Huh… That would have been immensely useful yesterday. She could have flown away from the spider while I teleported back home with the ruby seed.

I shook my head.

No point in mulling over what could have been.

Other than that, Casey had begun trying to edit the novel in various ways and seeing what it did to the world. She, Wi, and Elyssa had also begun experimenting with Wiland’s magic system. It was pretty slow going though. So far, only Wi had managed to somewhat feel the mana.

Huh.

I briefly wondered whether Casey was annoyed that despite being the one to create the whole magic system, she wasn’t the best at actually using it. I also wondered how it had to feel to use a genuine magic system you yourself had designed… or personally interact with a character you had created.

I frowned.

If I were to write a novel, would I be able to go inside it? Would another portal spawn?

No, hold up.

I had completely forgotten, but… the portal in my room had always been there, even though RLO had been released only five years ago.

How did that even work? If the portals connected to fictional worlds, then what would have happened if I’d opened the portal before RLO had released? Would it have even let me? Would it have led to somewhere else? Or would there just be an empty void beyond?

Or maybe… Could I somehow redirect the portal to lead into a different fictional world?

I had never tried anything other than opening and closing the portals. But now that I knew about their true nature, could I do more than that?

I blinked and then shook my head.

Dammit, my mind just kept wandering back to the portals. I’d promised Mom not to open any more portals and I wasn’t going to skirt the rules by experimenting.

I quickly typed a message, informing everyone that I had told Mom about everything and that I would be staying home from school today, put the phone away, and went back to the kitchen.

It was time to have a long talk with my mom. This time properly.