Chapter 3_Way Too Close

Tomiko looked around at the new world that just formed before her. Despite having such a negative predisposition to portals, she couldn’t help but be in awe. The sense of wide eyed discovery was more fun than she was expecting.

The sky had a delightful cyan glow, while the grass was varying shades of pastel green. It was as though someone took a computer background, increased the brightness and contrast, then gave it shape. Tufts of deep olive hue trees speckled the wide valley. A clear pond with a lazy river running through both ends could be seen in the middle distance. A gentle breeze was cooling off the warmth of the sun, whose rays were intermittently beaming down like a light rain.

‘Except… it couldn’t be the sun’ Tomiko thought to herself, pondering on the simple notion of how planetary bodies would be classified in other worlds.

After taking in the scenery for a bit longer than she would like to admit, she brought her attention back to herself. She knew enough about portals to understand your appearance would often change on the other side. If she remembered correctly, this was because certain traits were not ‘naturally occurring’ in the new world. This could be as minor as missing freckles, or as extreme as complete body reconstruction. She once overheard a portal that made everyone into snails was trendy for a while.

She was relieved to find that all of her limbs were still where they should be. She still felt human, and a girl at that, ‘what a relief’, as well as similar in build as real life. She assumed that was due to her ‘stats’ carrying over from reality.

Although, she did notice her body felt lighter. It was a bit concerning as she was already quite lean. Could have been due to less gravitational force, but she almost had the feeling her body had less in it. She was not that much thinner, and if anything, her higher perspective from the ground led her to believe she was actually a little taller now. It was almost like… her organs were lighter. She tried not to think about it too much, realizing it was something she would just have to get used to.

She then noticed that her skin tone was a bit lighter than real life. It was the shade it would most likely be if she wasn’t outside running as much. It should be an easy fix. Fortunately, an upgrade to tags not too long ago allowed people to adjust how they looked in other worlds. It was a bit unbelievable, and even the people to develop it only stumbled upon the method after being fortunate to dive in a world that had the technology to do so. They merely copied the process to work in other worlds as well.

Tomiko brought out her system settings enabled by her tag. Now that she was in a portal, her tag’s interface could be navigated remotely. She moved over to profile settings, then appearance, then opened the skin tone wheel. She darkened herself a few shades until it looked more familiar. While she was changing her appearance, she decided to have a little fun and change her eye color to blue. She always liked the look of blue eyes. Then she closed out of profile settings. It was enough fun for now. Her usual black, straight hair would suffice. She needed to focus more on the task at hand. Well… she opened it back up to change it to a nice braid. It would keep it out of her eyes while exploring.

Tomiko moved over to the equipment settings. Apparently her high school uniform translates to ‘mage school uniform’ in this world. She did not like the idea of having to learn spells, preferring the idea of getting in and hitting stuff until it died. Although, after her last experience in another world, fighting at a distance seemed like an option worth looking into.

Her katana also had a new world equivalent. It was in the ‘weapons’ category of the equipment settings listed as ‘Dragon Sword’. Maybe because her real one had a dragon on the guard. She equipped it, and noticed that it was no longer a japanese styled blade, but one more reminiscent of European origins. It still had a single cutting edge, but now had a crossguard. It was like a fancy falchion, with a flame pattern running down the back end of the blade. Tomiko felt a bit nerdy knowing what a falchion was.

Most of the other stuff she had with her also became starting supplies. Her pens became chalk, homework and textbook became loose paper, her calculator oddly became a set of 6 different dice, and her edamame snack became a sack of peas. Disappointingly, her smartphone only became a region map. She was hoping it would end up being something more valuable. She knew her dad spent a lot of money to make sure she had a model comparable to that of her classmates.

Tomiko then spent some time getting used to moving around in her new form. She didn’t expect the change in height to have that large of an effect, but it did! While walking around in circles to test out her movement she kept stumbling. This frustrated her, even though dealing with a sudden one foot growth spurt would be enough to disorientate anyone.

Before long, she was pacing around the field in wide, confident strides. The air was more refreshing than what she was used to in the city. She also felt that running was easier in a technical sense in some way. It was as if there was less tension needed to make her legs move, or that there was less in her legs. Optimized. Yeah her body felt more optimized.

She took a moment to prod at her calves and quads to make sure all the parts were really there, like, maybe they were hollow or something. Nothing seemed out of place, other than that her skin was smoother than usual.

Because of her disinterest in what others thought of her, and small budget, she tended not to take very good care of herself. She did everything needed so she could be healthy for sports. Appearances, on the other hand, got little to no attention. She used the crudest, cheapest sunscreen, never plucked eyebrows, and make-up was strictly for important occasions. Not that she was an unattractive person, but she certainly lacked a lot of the polish other girls in class worked for.

After legs, she made sure everything else was in order too while she was at it; arms, chest, abs, face. She noticed something strange when she pinched the back of her neck.

Something was there!

She swatted at it instinctively and leaped to the side, letting out a brief shriek. She quickly looked around at the ground for whatever it was, but didn’t see anything other than the glowing green grass. Suspecting it could still be there, she wanted to investigate further.

She started to be more aware of a strange tingle on the back of her neck. Like a spectral web that would not go away. She went to reach for it, but her hand passed through like it went under a faucet, or possibly a strong, narrow, cold hand dryer. After many attempts, she still couldn’t grip it. She waved her hand around, trying to get an idea on its form. It seemed to be a one inch diameter tube that led to a sphere about one and a half feet in diameter.

“Was it an other worldly balloon” she thought to herself, trying to think of a reasonable explanation. She never would have been able to guess no matter how hard she thought about it. She looked directly up to see if it was visible, making eye contact for the first time. She would soon wish she hadn’t.

Above her head, and connected to her neck, was a translucent globe with Chimon’s face.

Tomiko wanted to scream, but put her hand over her mouth and started breathing heavily. Panic set in. Everything about her situation had been tolerable and similar to her last dive up until that point. She fell backward and sat in horror as the sphere followed her as she moved.

“Um, please don’t be scared.” the object said, but it’s mouth did not move. Its face did not move either. It just switched from a smile to an expression of concern.

A bleat of shock escaped Tomiko at the new unusual properties of this thing attached to her. She pushed herself back a few feet while swatting at the object to make it go away. It was no use. It followed as she moved.

“It’s me, Chimon. Please don’t act this way. I’m sorry I didn’t explain earlier.” The face then switched to an expression of sadness.

Tomiko eased her breathing, starting to calm down. She could think a bit clearer as the impulse she was in danger parted. Maybe she wasn’t capable of being scared for too long. Maybe the undeserved self-deprecation of Chimon helped. Whatever. She got a grip, and got to her feet.

“So uh… this is unexpected.” She said as composed as she could, despite being very not ok with the situation.

“Yeah, I wanted to let you know before going in, just in case you were not comfortable with this set-up. You walked right in, so I guess that means you trust me with this.” Chimon said in a slight questioning tone. He knew very well that Tomiko panicking just moments before was a bad sign and most likely did not trust him at that moment. But at the same time, he was not strong enough to call out that Tomiko should have waited for him to finish explaining.

“Um… what do you mean by set-up?” She asked, but was really trying to remember how to log out and what was the fastest path home.

“Right. In this world, people actually need to dive in pairs and work together to share control.”

Tomiko did not like the casual way he implied he had some control of her body.

“Shared how?” She said very slowly with an interrogative look. She had remembered the log out steps and was seconds from leaving.

“Um!” the sphere changed into an expression of Chimon sweating nervously. He knew she was rightfully uncomfortable with what he just said. “You move and act as the avatar, and I handle the UI!”.

“The UI?” Tomiko asked, having already opened her settings and navigated to the log out option.

“Please don’t leave!” Chimon begged, having recognized Tomiko’s eye movements and knew what she was doing.

Many thoughts raced through Tomiko's head. She did not know enough about the situation. Her lack of diving experience meant that she did not know what was or was not possible in another world aside from a few overheard crazy stories. She did not trust this person, even if this sphere was Chimon, which she was not relying on as a safe assumption. Even if it was, she just met him and already labeled him a creep.

She also thought about her home life. Nothing specific, just a brief, dreary reminder that she was not where she wanted to be. She was low on options, and had already committed to accept whatever consequences came of her desperation.

She would hear him out.

“Explain what you need to.” She said threateningly, but the truth was that she felt very powerless.

“Yes, thank you!” Chimon said, his sphere changing to a smile. “As you can see, we are linked. You can essentially interact with the world as you would any other portal, but I can’t. Instead, I can help with various supports that are either rare or not found in other worlds.”

“Like what?” Tomiko asked, still lacking the full picture.

“Like… I can see a mini-map of the area and alert you to mobs.”

Tomiko was a bit lost. “Mobs?” She said in a confused tone, still audibly with her guard up, but taking in the information presented.

“Oh… right. Mobs are other creatures that move in this world. I guess that could be a bit insensitive to those that live here.” Chimon misunderstood the question, but still managed to give the answer Tomiko was looking for.

“Ok. But like… can you move my arm without me wanting to?” She asked directly.

“N-n-no! Nothing like that! Like I said, you have full control of the avatar. Well… I guess in this case it’s just your person.”

Tomiko was starting to understand that Chimon was using video game terms to try and explain things. This frustrated her. She wanted to call him out on it so that he would use normal words and terms that she would understand, but that would require admitting that she did not know them. So she stayed silent and waited for him to continue.

“Uh… I do have a bit of movement that I can do… like… to avoid attacks.” Chimon then started moving his sphere left and right. It was as though he was trying to imitate dodging, but it looked more like a balloon drifting back and forth from small gusts.

“You're not going to pass through me and make me feel chills?” Tomiko asked, still holding a position of suspicion.

“Nope,” Chimon replied confidently, like he had deliberately tested this in the past. “I can’t share your hurtbox, otherwise it would be very easy for me to avoid damage.”

Tomiko was a little taken aback by his sudden burst of excitement.

“Why would that matter? You look like a ghost. Also, I had no trouble passing my hand through you earlier.”

“Right, that’s because you can reach inside my bubble to grab items I pull out of your inventory for you. That way, you don’t have to scroll through menus as much. Pretty handy in combat. As far as damage, if I pop or get disconnected, we both die.”

Death. Tomiko did not like how casually he mentioned dying, but then remembered that tags make it so that death just pulls you out of the portal. She lingered a bit on the thought of dying until Chimon tried resuming the conversation.

“Most objects pass through me too, so it’s not like I’m going to pop from getting caught in a tree branch.” Chimon added, seeing that Tomiko looked troubled. He thought it was from her thinking moving around would be difficult without dying. He did not realize she was hung up on something personal. “It’s only magic and magically enhanced items that can hurt me.”

“Ugh. This is taking too long. How about we just get started and you can tell me what I need to know as it comes up.” Tomiko tried sounding impatient, but really she was trying to get away from the negative thoughts flooding her head. She stood up and started walking to a group of trees.

“Oh… uh… sure” Chimon said, face changing to that of dejection.

“Also, can you change how you look? Seeing your head float around me is very creepy.”

“Yes!” Chimon said in excitement, enjoying that he was asked to do something that he knew how to do.

Chimon’s features changed to that of simplified lines. His eyes rounded rectangles, and his mouth a single curve. There was an emoji-like quality to it. Tomiko found it creepy in a different way. At least it was not Chimon.

“Better.” she said after briefly looking back at the bubble, before continuing to move forward.

“Um,” Chimon said nervously, “ where are we going?

Tomiko did not like his use of the word we, for some reason, but did not bring it up other than reverting back to a stand-offish tone

“I’M going to find something to fight. That’s why I’m here.”

“Oh, right…” Chimon weakly trailed off like he wanted to say something else.

As Tomiko approached the trees, Chimon piped up.

“I am not detecting any combatants in this area.”

“What do you mean, animals live around trees, so monsters should too.”

“Um…” Chimon replied uncomfortably “I know that is common in a lot of games and other worlds, but there are not any enemies in the starting area. I can lead you to where you can find some?”

Tomiko was getting more frustrated. She didn’t like being wrong, but she also didn’t like someone else having to explain things to her. She was the professional here, so she should know more. Despite asking him to stop explaining, pointing out when she was wrong felt like he was withholding information until after she embarrassed herself. It was true that she didn’t know much about what was going on, and that Chimon said he was in a position of knowing where things were, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“Fine!” Tomiko said aggressively. “Lead the way.”

“Gah! Yes ma’am!” Chimon replied, taken aback by the sudden aggression.

He told her to walk east, and the two started their journey.