Chapter 26: System Update
RING! RING!
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RING~ RING!
Ziro opened his eyes with a large gasp, as though he had come out of the water after a long time.
He was lying on the floor in the puddle of his blood.
RING! RING!
It took him a while to realize what was going on. He was still feeling dizzy, and he couldn't think straight. He crawled to the bed and grabbed his phone.
HIs dizziness vanished as soon as he looked at the screen.
There were 52 missed calls and 143 messages from Alina.
Ziro took a deep breath and picked up the phone.
"Hey, good morning," he greeted her.
[It's past noon! What were you doing?! Do you have any idea how worried I was?!] Alina yelled on the phone, but her voice was full of concern.
"I was dreaming about you." Even though Ziro had a lot to figure out, he couldn't stop acting flirty.
[Did you just wake up?] Alina asked.
"No, I was ignoring you all this time," Ziro grinned and said, "Of course, I just woke up."
[Are you okay? Were you fixing Lily all night?]]
"Yeah, I was, and then…" Ziro sat up and glanced around to see a puddle of blood on the floor.
[Ziro?]
Ziro remembered everything and immediately looked at the mirror to see his face, but it was unscathed, almost as if nothing had ever happened.
[Ziro, are you there?]
"Yeah, I was uhh… I was fixing Lily and fell asleep. What about you? What are you doing?" Ziro tried to act normal.
[I just ate lunch and thought of calling you. I felt weird since you usually call me as soon as you wake up, especially on weekends— asking for dates.]
"So you were missing me, eh?"
[Yes. I was missing you since I couldn't sleep properly because of you.]
"Oh? Why? Did you have a dream of us having some passionate body massaging?" Ziro asked with a grin on his face.
[No. I couldn't sleep because what I did yesterday kept flashing before my eyes. And the smell of your thick and slimy mayonnaise was stuck in my mouth.]
"I have more. How about you come over so I can fill you with it?"
[No thanks. I called you to ask you if you are coming to play LNA or not?]
"Uhh… What time is it right now?"
[It's… 13: 32.]
"Give me 20 minutes. I will take a shower and eat something, then hop into LNA," Ziro asserted and left his room.
He jumped through the small stairs to get down quickly and looked at the table in the living room that was filled with leftovers and dirty dishes.
"Make it 30 minutes," he sighed.
[Alright. I will wait for you at the fountain.]
"Don't talk to strangers," Ziro commented.
[I love you. Bye.] Alina hung up the call.
Ziro furrowed his brows as he found it weird since Alina never took the initiative on saying, 'I love you.'
Ziro was always the first one to say, and Alina would say 'I love you too.' in response.
"Heh! It must be because of what happened yesterday," Nero smirked and shrugged his shoulders.
He threw his phone on the sofa and yelled," Chiby! I spilled some juice in my room. I want my room clean before I come out of the bath!"
Some mini-robots came out from all over the house and rushed upstairs to Ziro's room.
Meanwhile, Ziro took a 5-minute shower and thought about what happened last night.
'What was all that? I don't feel any pain, but I do feel weird all over my body.'
He turned off the shower and wore a towel without wiping his body.
"I will book an appointment with a doctor for the evening," he muttered.
Ziro went straight into the kitchen, turned on the stove, put on a pan, and cracked two eggs. After stirring the eggs, he grabbed the bread and placed them into the pan.
Then, he rushed to the living room and grabbed all the dishes at once. He packed all the leftovers in a bag and threw them out from the back door.
"Lily, remind me to burn the garbage later and—" He stopped and let out a deep sigh as he remembered he still hasn't fixed Lily.
Ziro placed all the dirty dishes in a dishwasher and started making breakfast. By the time he was done eating breakfast, all the dishes were washed.
He then ran upstairs in his room and saw there was no sign of blood on the floor.
"Good boys!"
He grabbed the VR headset and looked at the time.
It was 13: 59.
"Two minutes early."
He laid down on the bed and pressed the switch.
[Welcome to LNA.]
Ziro heard a voiceover and opened his eyes to find himself on a relatively busy street.
"This login was a lot smoother than the first one," Ziro sighed in relief.
He was a little anxious about the login since he had a terrible experience on the first login, but after login in smoother the second time, all his anxiety had vanished.
Ziro glanced around to see everyone was busy doing something; people were more socially active in the game than in the real world.
[You Have Received A Notification.]
A message box appeared in front of Ziro, and it had two options.
[Open.] [Close.]
Curious, Ziro opened the notification saying, "Open."
Ziro frowned his face and squinted his eyes in disbelief after looking at the notification.
"It's empty."
The notification was empty. Ziro tried to see the name of the sender, but that was empty too. He then thought of closing and re-opening the notification, but when he did, the message had disappeared.
"Was that some kind of bug?" he wondered.
[System Updated.] Ziro heard another crisp and clear voiceover.
'Hmm? System updated? An update was going on? That explains the glitch.'
Ziro thought the notification was a glitch because of the update, but the notification was a notification of the game, while the 'System update' was the notification of his system being updated.
-- Gift
received