Races: Online (VR Smartphone App)

Chapter 102: Cut Scene Of a Time Lagged Traveller

[ Earth Time: 12:00: You Have Been Logged In For Thirteen Hours! ]

[ Earth Status: One Individual Is Violently Shaking Your Physical Body! ]

[ Earth Status: Forced Logout! ]

Han Jing woke up with a massive headache, he bolted right up and quickly saw his mother's face right beside him, she was frowning at him, "Jing, you've been oversleeping. Come and help me prepare for lunch." They had been the one who had been violently shaking him?

He tried to find his bearings for a moment, "M-Mom?" What happened? All he could remember washis head throbbed even more as he clutched it for a moment, "Ack, fu" He gritted his teeth for and waited for the pain to subside.

"Han Jing, don't play sick, come and help me already." His mother tsked and stood up as she walked over to their dinner table. She seemed to be cutting vegetables in their room instead of the shared kitchen. "We're making spring rolls."

"Can you give me a minute?"

Rolling over for a moment, he clutched his pillow and covered his face. It took him a minute or two to recompose himself, the odd waves that flurried through his head. He took a deep breath and reluctantly stepped over to the table, "Are the wrappers already done, Mother?"

"I bought premade ones at the market, here I thought you were starting to wake up earlier but it had been a one time occasion. Go and start wrapping them." She motioned to the bowls filled with sliced and diced vegetables, bean sprouts, carrots, peas along with tofu. "Once we're done, we'll fry them downstairs. Do you think our new neighbor is still here?"

"New neighbor what?" Han Jing narrowed his eyes as he placed the fillings on the wrapper and began to roll them together and folded the two ends together.

"We just had dinner with them last night! What was her name? Chan Lei?"

Han Jing blinked and looked at his mother, "It's Chan Lee, Mother." The memories of last night? Had it really been just last night? It felt much longer than that to him.

"You remember her name but not the dinner?" The older woman in front of him shook her head in disbelief as she placed the rolls on another plate. She had already made several rolls while Han Jing was still on his second one.

Maybe if her son had been Mou Gu, they would have been able to make lunch faster and even taste better too. He sighed as he finished and looked at the droopy looking spring roll as he placed them on the plate. Perhaps noticing that he wasn't replying or deciding to finish their meal preparation quicker, his mother allowed him a moment of silence.

Han Jing was trying to recollect himself.

His entire body ached and felt all jumbled up for some reason, but he continued to help his mother finish wrapping up their spring roll, "Can I not join you in frying them?" He asked at last as he scratched his head, "I'm feeling under the weather."

"Well, don't try sleeping again, I swear you sleep like a log now, son." His mother shook her head as she picked up the plate of spring rolls, "I'll be right back. Try sitting down and drinking more wateralways being in front of gadgets really is messing up your health." Muttering a few more lectures or complaints, his mother headed out at last.

Han Jing crumpled for a moment, or at least he tried to. There wasn't much he could do but slouch on his seat as he massaged his forehead for a moment. Messing up his health? That was silly wait, his phone. Han Jing picked himself up and went over to his bed and found his phone with several notifications.

[ Races: Online: Han the [ Human ] is on auto-mode. ]

[ Current Goal: Finding Ellynn the [ Half Elf ]'s Dorm Room ]

[ Basing Actions on previous Soul-Waves ]

[ Completion Time: 9 minutes and 58 seconds ]

[ Races: Online: World Time is 21:20 ]

He stared for a moment.

And then a couple more seconds. Before he slapped a hand over his face, "They had some sort of AFK Mode?! This is... " Han Jing frowned and let out a big sigh. It wasn't like he was unaware of 'farming modes' in games, even he would get tired of endless grinding but even this kind of simulation, universal project had their own 'auto-play' mode? Why didn't the others mention it at all?

Were they aware of this toanother wave of pain flashed across his head. It was probably similar to, Han Jing covered his mouth and tried not to hurl. What kind of symptoms were these? "Am I pregnant?!" He tried not to snort as he laid back down and stared at the ceiling. This felt like jet lag?

His mother mentioned his phone being the reason why he was feeling unwelland though she might have been exaggerating as most parents were, this time, it felt a bit too accurate. He shut his eyes for a moment and let out a huge sigh, until he snapped them open once more.

There were some notifications he hadn't seen yet.

Han Jing clutched his phone and unlocked it and began to scroll down from the notifications and then found an email. It was from frag_petals he tried to keep a straight face and checked the contents:

Don't give up and find a job! Here's a PDF version of your resume and CV and some other credentials. I added myself as a reference.

Bo Lifen

He blinked again and saw the attachments. He was able to download them and he frowned once again, it had been yesterday too. He was looking for a job and visited Mou Gu and then Bo Lifen, just yesterday. Yesterday. Although it had been weird before when he first entered the game using [ Free Reign Mode ], this was the first time he began to feel the effects between jumping back between the world in Races: Online and his world here. It felt like more than a day had passed although it had only been thirteen hours when he was online.

"Well, it's like I'm awake twenty-four hours a day." Han Jing rubbed his head, "That doesn't sound good now that I think of it. Is this why I'm feeling shitty?" He sighed and checked the resume that he and Bo Lifen had worked on, there were also some application letters. He eyed his photo and made a face. He needed to replace his photo.

Maybe when he got the chance, he could enhance it a bit?

Although there were some more things that he was failing to take note of. Had he left his mobile data on all night?! He checked his home screen and found it off? But he had been able to? And the Wi-Fi in this apartment was always too bad so he never bothered connecting with it either.

So downloading the app really made his phone's software change? He now had unlimited data connection?! That meant he could finally download all the games he wanted and all those deleted videos too! 

Wait a second.

If the Creators or whoever made this app managed to make something like this it really did mean that they accessed his phone and gathered all his information didn't he? Sure, most of his information was probably spied on already by advertisers and bots but he stared around his room. What if his family suddenly got involved in this?

How would they react to this?

It wasn't like they would touch his phone or anything but it was worrisome. What if his mom or sister received a similar message? What if the Creators were sending this to more people thanthey already did. He was on server sixty-nine, there were already sixty-eight other places for other Humans like him. 

But in this place, or at least "I don't have the answers to this but somebody else can give them to me..." Han Jing opened up his email app again and scoured for that particular email and managed to locate it.

Perhaps he should have tried with the Moderator, but he didn't want to log in to Races: Online again. And now that he thought about her, their very first conversation had been her asking him if he was alright. If his sanity was still intact if his brains didn't feel like they were exploding.

He just told her that he was feeling peachy.

That was very stupid of him but he had been itching to logout that time. Han Jing sighed as he opened up the email and found the very familiar scammy sounding email that gifted him an equivalent of $1000 for signing up as a beta-tester along with the download link.

Alright, now it was his chance to file a complaint? 'Hey, my head feels like it's going to burst open so give me compensation?' More formal of course. Although the gist would be around those lines? Or maybe something like 'Customer Complaint, Health Is Deteriorating.' Han Jing wished that wasn't the case, he massaged his temples for a moment.

A door swung open as his mother stepped in back into the room, the aroma of their freshly crisped spring rolls engulfing his senses. "Alright, I'll do this after I eat."