CHAPTER 7 - Beginning
_STOCKAR CITY, SVEARIKA, AROUND 11 P.M._
Altair just reappeared in the bedroom in his house.
"What a day… I was so close to failing it. *Sigh*… To think I have to do this every day now…"
'How will I do this when I return to work from the holidays? How will I even get the time for super-hero activities with a routine like that?'
*Sigh*…
With another sigh, he left the bedroom to take a bath.
'I didn't even have the time to visit a gym to test what the different stats represent.'
'I'm pretty sure my running speed has increased but I don't know by how much exactly.'
"Well, there's always tomorrow."
Saying this, he went to his bedroom and slept for the rest of the night.
The next morning, Altair woke up still feeling tired. In ad-dition to the weariness, he felt some pain in different parts of his body.
Every little movement felt like a chore.
'This Daily Quest is going to kill me. Do I have to do it today too?'
He opened the System using the icon, and brought up the Quest tab.
[Daily Quest : Routine of the strong ]
[Push-up, 100 times : Incomplete (0/100) ]
[Sit-up, 100 times : Incomplete (0/100) ]
[Squats, 100 times : Incomplete (0/100) ]
[Running, 10 km : Incomplete (0/10) ]
[Quest Reward: Full status recovery (ⅹ1),
Points (ⅹ3),
Random loot box. ]
[Quest Failure: Moving to Penalty Zone ]
'Of course, it's still there, and it has reset.' He inwardly thought with an exasperated expression on his face.
Next, Altair saw a new icon had appeared with a circled italics (i), ⓘ, in its center. Opening it, he discovered that it was a notifications tab.
'I don't recall this being here yesterday. Will new icons only show up when there is something new from the System?'
'Well, it doesn't really matter right now.'
The notifications tab showed a single line of content.
[Daily Quest Reward(s) ►]
Altair focused on the toggle he saw, and the information ex-panded into a smaller window.
[Claim: Full status recovery (ⅹ1) (y/n)]
[ lootbox (y/n)]
'Can't help but be amazed at the convenience of this whole controlling with the mind thing.' He thought.
Then, he looked at the time, and it was only 3 a.m.
'It's Monday, but the imposed holiday means I'm not going to work today.'
*Sigh*…
'I'll just wash the jogging outfit that I used yesterday first.'
Not even 15 minutes later, he was sitting in front of the TV with his body still aching all over.
He decided to use the Full status recovery, offered by the System, and all his fatigue instantly vanished like a lie.
Altair had an amazed expression on his face.
"Wow! Talk about convenience. With something like this, the Daily Quest will be a cinch."
He felt like he was already ready to do today's Daily Quest.
'It's probably too early to be running out right? I might be mistaken as a robber escaping or something.'
Altair put on another jogging outfit and went out of the house. Then, he started doing the other tasks of the Daily Quest.
With some difficulty, he finished the 100 push-ups, then 100 squats and finished with the 100 sit-ups after 1 hour of persisting.
The time now showed 4 a.m. so he looked online for a mara-thon track in the country.
He teleported near the track and jogged to the place.
Once there, he did a few stretches first and after about 5 minutes of doing stretches, he took off running at near-maximum speed.
Nearly 5 hours later, at about 9 a.m., he was done with the 10 km run. He rested for a while in the place under a shaded area.
For about 15 minutes, he sat there, doing nothing other than resting, with even his mind blank.
Then he left the place, walking slowly away before teleport-ing home.
He cleaned himself after soaking his clothes in some water with detergent, after which he just went to sleep.
Waking up at 11 a.m., he left the house and went out to look for a gym.
Surprisingly, it was not that difficult to find one without cameras.
He walked into a random fitness club, the first one he spot-ted, and took a seat. He went in as if he owned the place or like someone who knew what he was doing, going straight for the seats without glancing around too much.
With the way he acted, he assumed no one would think he was lost or that he was new in there, so no one would come to-wards him offering to help him or anything of the sort.
While on his seat, he took out his phone, 'busying' himself with it. Meanwhile, from time to time, he would lift his head from his phone and look undisguisedly in places he thought could have cameras, acting spaced out as if he was lost in thought.
Once he confirmed that there were no cameras, he did not im-mediately leave. Instead, he went to the reception.
He thought he was acting normal enough, but he noticed that he had attracted the receptionist's attention. In the end, to avoid looking suspicious, or rather to reduce the recep-tionist's suspicion towards his behavior, he had to act as if he was there to register.
"Hello." Altair started.
The receptionist who was looking at a register turned her attention to him and returned his greeting.
"Hello sir, how can I help you?"
"I'd like to know what I need to register. Can you give me a brochure?"
…
Walking out of the fitness club, Altair was somewhat con-fused.
He went to the receptionist just to get some information and dispel her suspicion of him before leaving, but somehow, he ended up registering.
With the closing of the sliding glass door behind him, he returned to his senses and wondered. 'What just happened?'
He steadily walked away from the place, making his way to his house.
…
At home, he turned on the TV and put on the news, as was his habit.
On a global news channel…
|" The strip of Hzat is now the most dangerous place in the world to be a child, and to live in today, as entire extend-ed families are wiped out in continuous explosions as casu-alties…" |
Those were the first words he heard when he switched to the channel.
His expression directly hardened, and although he was tired when he came in, he stood back up and immediately teleported to his bedroom.
He started looking for something to wear, something that would cover his whole body like a costume to hide his iden-tity.
He wanted something that would cover all his skin, not even revealing his race or skin color as he intended to be in contact with the rescuees.
'I won't be standing by this time.' Altair told himself.
He took a greyish green suit he had in his closet and wore it on using the System's inventory, and then he did the same with a pair of thick black gloves, and a pair of black boots.
While inspecting himself, he muttered. "Something is miss-ing…"
He quickly realized what that was.
He rummaged through his belongings for a mask, but it was without success. The only thing he had was the one he used to clean his room but it would leave some parts of his head and hair exposed.
Since he did not want that, he took a linen wool pullover and started making it into a cowl.
He cut it open with scissors and when he had a rectangular piece of the material, he measured it around his head.
After doing so, Altair removed the cloth and he took a sta-pler that he used in the place of a sewing thread to com-plete the shape of a cowl.
After making holes for his eyes, he broke a pair of shades and glued the lenses to the eyeholes he had just made.
After doing this, he opened his browser and started search-ing for locations. His target being places with low popula-tion density that are safe to live in.
Finding his targets, he memorized the locations and then, teleported back to the living room, wanting to choose a place in Hzat where he would teleport.
The news was still going on, but instead of the headlines, it was now a report.
On the screen, he saw what appeared to be the ruins of a building. Books, food, and many others items could be seen scattered around and about when the camera moved.
The voice of a reporter accompanied the broadcast.
|" …little remains of this building in the center of Hzat. It collapsed late Friday night following an air strike from country Rae. Children's toys and some food are all that can be recognized…" |
In barely anytime, the 'cowl' he left to dry was ready, and he wore it on his head, making sure his hair was completely covered.
< >
He teleported to the place shown in the report after check-ing that it was not a live report.
_DIR-AL-BAH, HZAT, PHILISTIA_
Appearing in the streets of Dir-al-Bah, at the ruined build-ing showing in the report, Altair started looking around him for some time.
It was still daytime, and with Hzat being a hot country on the Alkebulan continent, he felt very hot in his stuffy out-fit, but it did not really matter to him at this time.
He looked for a place to stay by himself and waited for night to come before moving people away.
While searching, he saw so many people amid the destruction and ruins of the place.
He decided not to hold back. He slowly took in a deep breath and then gently let go.
He took in another breath and let go once more, then he felt ready.
With his voice slightly muffled by the 'cowl', he said. "This is when it started."
For a moment, he recalled the locations he had decided to be the rescuees' destinations and then he acted.
In an instant, he disappeared from his position and reap-peared near the people.
He started with the stray ones.
He appeared near someone, placed his hand on the person, and then disappeared with that person.
The first destination, he had decided would be the Land of Ozz country. As a continent country, he assumed it would have the most space to accommodate the rescuees and as a tropical place, it should have enough resources to accommo-date them for a long time.
. . .
. .
.
7