Adder mumbled, "Log out."
The next second, the world became dark around him.
After a moment of confusion, Ray opened his eyes inside the metal pod.
The stinging pain made him wince. He pushed open the pod doors to the dimly lit room.
It was around 3 in the morning. Not making any noise, he pulled himself toward his bed.
Aren was snoring on the other end of the room.
Ray dropped onto his bed just next to the pod. He lay there, staring at the ceiling.
After all the ups and downs, the moment he hit the pillow, the world spun around as he blacked out.
…
"Ray, Ray… wake up."
Irritated, Ray snapped open his eyes and stared at Aren.
Aren handed him the phone. "It's from our coordinator."
Ray rubbed his eyes. "What's going on?"
Aren motioned toward the phone. "I don't know. She just told me to hand you the phone."
Still half asleep, Ray grabbed Aren's phone. "Good morning, Riza ma'am."
A thin but firm voice came from the phone. [Is it Ray?]
"Yes, ma'am."
[Why are you not picking up your phone?]
"Phone?" Ray grabbed his phone, and sure enough, there were tons of missed calls from the past half hour.
He clicked his tongue and instantly apologized. "Sorry, ma'am. I mistakenly placed it on silent mode."
[Ray, I wanted to talk to you regarding the defaulter list.]
'Is it that?' The mention of the defaulter list instantly woke him up. He glanced at the wall clock and cursed in his head. 'Shit, it's almost 9.'
This started to click in his mind.
She asked again. [Are you listening?]
"Yes, ma'am."
[So, Ray, the college has prepared a special training program for all the defaulters. But this morning, I got a call from the department that they were unable to contact your character in the game. Can you explain what's going on?]
Ray sighed. Though she called him from Aren's mobile, the content was the same as his past life.
In his past life, this call had taken him by surprise. The college had been too quick to notice his character deletion, but this time, he was already prepared.
Not repeating the same mistake, he let out a loud sigh on the call. "Sigh, ma'am, please, can we discuss it tomorrow?"
Her voice turned a bit soft. [What happened, Ray? Is everything okay?]
Ray lowered his voice further while sniffing. "Riza ma'am, just so much happened yesterday. Please, just one day… I promise I will come tomorrow morning and will try to explain everything to you."
She asked in a worried tone. [Is it about the video?]
Ray remained silent and just continued sniffing on the phone.
[Take your time, kid. Things like that happen. It is better to move on. I will manage it for you, but do understand it's under college policy. So the moment you recover, just come to the college to talk with me.]
"Sniff… thank you… Thank you so much, ma'am."
[No worries, kid. Take care.]
Click!
Ray handed the phone back to Aren, who stared at him, full of pity.
Not saying anything, he just winced and dragged himself to the washroom.
…
Half an hour later, Ray walked out, soaking wet.
Aren had left the room, giving him the awaited empty time for planning.
He quickly changed into a long-sleeve T-shirt and jeans to hide many of the black marks.
Not wasting further time, he sat on the ground with a notebook in hand.
Even with the class and subclass, there were still tons of problems he had to face.
The biggest of all was the college issue.
From the past, he knew that by the end of the day, many would notice his character's disappearance from their friend list.
Especially with the defaulter list and yesterday's video, this would only fuel tons of rumors.
In his past life, he had been too focused on getting his revenge and comeback to care about others. At least his past self had been sensible enough to always hide the details of his class.
Ray stopped thinking about the past. This time, there was also that Rooney guy and his miss.
The interaction with that girl only reinforced his weakness of having no backer. There was a high chance those guys would come looking for him, though it might take them a week to discover where he lived.
If by then he failed to have any backing, he would be left at her mercy.
Ray clicked his tongue and started searching for all the top active guilds around his city.
He had a basic idea, but it had been so long that he wanted to make sure he wasn't mixing up the timeline.
After all, within a matter of months, many new guilds rose and fell in the game.
Though he was more focused on guilds backed by the underworld faction.
From the day Zenaris Online was launched, it reshaped the world. Even in his past life, people continued to argue whether it was a positive or negative change.
But if there was one change that everyone agreed was positive, it was the game's contribution to dismantling the use of drugs, alcohol, and other kinds of intoxicants.
This was the most unexpected, unrelated effect, as players could experience far stronger intoxication within the game without harming their bodies.
This simple shift alone forced large chunks of the underworld to search for alternate sources of income.
He had read that many key figures moved toward the game during those days.
There was also the factor of gaining untraceable in-game money, which they used to barter in real life.
In his past life, he had heard some pioneer top players claim it was underworld figures who promoted the use of in-game currency.
Though many argued this was false, after three years of the game, no one could deny the presence of the third faction across the world.
The faction he was most familiar with, after all, he had been one of their victims in a past life.