After cleaning the entire room, Ray dragged himself to the sofa. From the moment he woke up, he had been doing one thing after another.
He turned to the wall clock and groaned. "Ah, only one hour left."
Aren tilted his head to the side. He asked as he wrapped the poly bags, "Don't tell me you started a time-bound quest."
Ray just smiled at him. With nothing urgent, he finally got to refresh his memory. He remembered Aren. He was in the same game batch as him. It was just that he was part of the logistics support team.
Just to double-check, he took out his phone. The thing still kept buzzing with a bunch of group and private messages.
Most of them were about the video. Ignoring them, he opened the description for the second-year game batch.
At the very front was a list of all sorts of teams present there. He read the description. In the second-year game batch, there were seven frontal assault teams, four exploration teams, fifteen strike teams, and three logistics teams.
In Zenaris Online, there were multiple ways for a player to progress. Being part of a game batch scholarship, students needed to be part of one such team.
Before the entire mess, he had also been part of the fifth-ranked strike team. The competition in the strike teams was the hardest.
Ray just rubbed his forehead, not wanting to think about that mess for now.
Suddenly, Aren said in a low tone, "Hey, Ray?"
Ray turned to the side only to see Aren standing there, frozen, staring at his mobile screen.
He raised his eyebrow. "What happened?"
Aren just gulped and showed him the phone. "Someone just sent me this video."
Ray squinted his eyes, as he did not remember any other video. Well, in the past, he had still been busy with the dungeon, so maybe that was why.
It took a moment before he realized it was from their classroom. There, a boy was kissing a black-haired girl.
He recognized the boy. "It's Mark, right?"
Aren just nodded to him.
Ray tilted his head. "He is kissing his girl—" Ray froze halfway as, at the very last moment, he caught the side profile of the girl.
He stared at the phone with wide eyes. He asked Aren in a deep tone, "Are you sure this is real?"
Aren just stiffly shook his head. "I don't know. It was sent by an unknown number."
Ray closed his eyes as the black-haired girl kept flashing through his head. 'Fck. She was with him from this early on.'
He slammed his fist on the sofa. 'Stupid! How could I not see that in the past?'
He just fell flat on the sofa and stared at the ceiling. There was no way he could forget this woman. After all, she was his team leader and his ex-lover, Lena.
Yeah, ex-girlfriend. In his past life, the two of them had mutually parted ways. It was just his stupid past self who still maintained the so-called friendship with her and stayed on her team.
'So it was not her difference with that woman?' In his past life, he had always thought their team broke because of Lena's personal differences with the second strike team leader.
Now he was not even sure about that.
'Wait, if she was with Mark, then how come no one from our team joined Mark's strike team?'
He just grabbed his head.
In his past life, after their team broke, most of them had rushed to join the second strike team. This led to the second team overtaking Mark's first strike team.
'What did Mark and Lena even want?'
He just sighed again at his past actions. Without knowing any of this in the past, once he had gained the dungeon master class, he had just built his own team and even invited Lena as his vice leader.
Aren walked to him. "Hey, Ray, it could be a morphed video."
Ray turned to him. It hit him how he had never gotten this video in the past.
He picked up his phone and once again scanned all the ignored messages, but none of them had any video.
After a moment, he just shook his head with a smile. In his entire past life, he had carried the burden that it was his stupidity that had caused trouble for her. But now that this possibility had emerged, he felt lost.
Fck, he did not care if she kissed this or that. He had always thought the two of them had basic respect toward each other, but it looked like that had also been the stupidity of his past self.
Aren sat beside him. "Hey, if you want, we could check the video's authenticity with—"
Ray waved his hand. "Nah, leave it. I don't care."
"But don't you love her—" Aren choked on his words.
Ray stared at Aren and then sighed. Now that he thought about his past self's actions, he could understand why, to an outsider, it looked like he still loved her.
To be true, it was not that he did not hate her. There had been a big reason for their breakup. It was just that her actions inside the game had been so absurd, yet she still got results.
To learn how she managed to pull off those things, he had chosen to stick to her. But now he was not even sure if all that had really been because of her.
Heck, the way their team had jumped from thirteenth to fifth position in just the last three months. Also, how those few people had suddenly joined them.
It was as if someone had pulled the blindfold off him. He just started laughing. "Haha."
In the past, he had always had that calm belief that what he achieved before the drama was all because of his own efforts. It stung to know that even his first year in college had been orchestrated by others.
Was there any moment when he had not been controlled by these people?
This time, he wanted to stay away from this entire college mess. But now he really wanted to see just how powerful these manipulators were.
Especially that woman, Lena.
Fck, he cursed himself and just walked back to the gaming pod.
Before any new bomb dropped, he wanted to have the last piece.
Not wasting any more time, he jumped into the gaming pod and tapped the power button.