CHAPTER 8 - The Limit

For the next several minutes, people continued disappearing from Hzat without anyone noticing what was happening. Altair's way of operating was deliberately silent, and he made sure to go where he was out of sight. He avoided talking to anyone or making any sound.

He was particularly wary of journalists and more so of those who had a camera with them.

.

Frankly, most of his bias came from watching too many movies that depicted journalists in a negative light. However, his observation of what happened in Kyrnac also contributed to his already negative opinion of them.

Unlike in the comics, where it mostly went well for the most popular super-heroes, he did not think he would end in a good situation if the wrong people knew of his existence.

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After only a few teleportation trips, there were much less stragglers and most of those present were in some kind of group. Seeing this, he decided to wait for the night to fall, counting the darkness as his ally in this situation.

When night came, and when he assumed they would all be sleeping, Altair cautiously approached where everyone was, ready to teleport them away.

In his opinion, wherever they were, was much better than the war thorn location they were currently in.

With Ozz being seven hours ahead of Philistia, places were already turning dark there when he started leaving the rescuees.

If they woke up, no one would be able to immediately contact or phone anyone to report what happened, and by the time someone reported, he would be nowhere near the place and there would be no chance of finding him.

He made sure to teleport away the outermost sleepers first, those he considered to be the most likely to wake up with the slightest disturbance.

Those that were further from the exits were deeper in their sleeps and disturbances were less likely to affect them. They were mostly children.

The people in the room started reducing and every time Altair appeared in the room, he touched one or two people and instantly disappeared. An onlooker might perceive this whole situation to be a glitch and might even doubt the number of people present in the place.

Meanwhile, in Ozz, the people had been waking up for a while now.

It would have been odd for none of them to react to the drastic change in not only the ambient temperature, but also the surface onto which they were lying, even in their sleep.

For most of them, if not all of them, the constant exposure to a warring environment had made them very sensitive and agitated. Therefore, when Altair left them and went to bring more people, they started waking up from their sleep shortly after his departure.

Naturally, they felt very confused at the situation they suddenly found themselves to be, and with a few shouts, they grouped back up.

Since they mostly knew each other, they started coming together in this unfamiliar environment. Gathering towards a single location.

After which, they started talking among themselves, trying to figure out their situation.

"What is happening?" One person asked with apparent confusion.

"I don't know…". Replied another.

Someone else asked. "Does anyone know how we got here; The last thing I remember is going to sleep."

Other people appeared and someone noticed the sudden appearance of two people, along with the disappearance of something that was close to them when they appeared.

"Did you see that too?" Someone asked pointing at the place where the two new people had just appeared.

"Do you think… Are we… Are we dead?" One person asked in a fearful tone.

Seeing another two people appearing, another asked.

"Was that the grim reaper? Is it taking us on the road to the after-life?"

When people heard this, the mood became complicated.

Many of them did not want to die, and even though some people, at some point thought that death would be better than the situation their homes was thrown into, they still hoped for things to get better and for the situation around them to improve.

They were scared of what would happen now that they were dead, but at least their deaths had been a painless one.

Since at this time, most of the children were not there, the parents and guardians of the kids were still hopeful that the children had survived the explosion somehow, but they couldn't help but be worried about their lives in that environment.

Obviously, they wished for the kids to have survived but some thought of how painless and peaceful their own deaths had been and somewhat wished for the kids to have had a similar experience. At the very least, wasn't this better than that suffering?

Therefore, the gradual appearance of some kids among the people arriving at the place dismayed and distressed them. The little composure that most of them had managed to gather broke at this time.

Many of the mothers strongly started hoping, praying even, for their child not to be among those the grim reaper would bring along to this place.

Elder brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, guardians, who spotted the ones they were responsible for, were moving towards them to reassure them, so that they would not be too disoriented or afraid.

Meanwhile, with the continuous rapid teleportation, Altair began to feel the strain.

Last time he checked, his teleportation did not consume any resource from him; his mana remained the same, there was no meter or gauge that suddenly popped up, and he was not even out of breath, but he needed clear focus to switch locations.

Now, however, with each teleportation, the image of his destinations became blurrier in his mind.

It was not as if he was forgetting the places, rather, it was like a driver, who after driving for too long became dry-eyed and unable to keep their eyes on the road.

His experience however was not as simple a case as dry eyes. He was able to push through initially, but after some time, he realized that it was becoming more and more difficult to visualize his location and therefore it took him bigger intervals to teleport.

Because of the stretching intervals between the teleports, an increasing number of people could see him before he left Ozz after dropping the rescuees.

He felt disoriented and very tired, his focus waning and the location blurrier than ever.

He decided to teleport to the place he used as a lookout and hiding spot during the day, rather than teleport directly to get the kids. 'What is happening? I can't concentrate.'

He was a little frustrated, but he was also a little scared, thinking this might be a late side effect of either the System or the teleportation ability.

For a few seconds, even his vision became dark. So much so that, he could not even see in front of him.

That it when it dawned on him that he might just be tired. The solution was simple. At the very least, for him, the solution was simple at this moment.

'(Use, Full status recovery)' He mentally instructed.

With prior experience of using this reward from the Daily Quest, he knew it could do away with fatigue. Therefore, it came as no surprise to him that his weariness went away like a lie, leaving him instantly refreshed and ready to resume his activities.

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Meanwhile, in Ozz, for the short time that Altair stopped to rest, no more kids had appeared in the location he left people earlier.

Some people, especially the ones who had started praying that the kids do not die and meet them in this place, were visibly relieved.

Just a few seconds later, Altair resumed his task of teleporting the rest of the children, much to the parent's despair.

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Altair did not notice any of this and just kept on teleporting the rest of the kids from their resting location in Hzat, and after a short while, this time taking some more time in between teleportation trips, he finally teleported everyone.

In less than five minutes, he had teleported away over 100 people from Hzat in Philistia, a country on the Alkebulan continent to Ozz, a country continent that is more than 12000 km to the east.

When he was done, he felt somewhat tired, but also relieved that he had completed the Daily Quest before going to teleport all those people.

'What would have happened if I had collapsed from exhaustion after teleporting so many times consecutively?' He wondered, pondering also how to deal with it in the future.

It would be really troublesome if while he was passed out, someone discovered him and the person mistook him for a robber or they just had bad intentions.

'I need to figure out a way to solve the focus problem. Although the Full status recovery helps alleviate fatigue, it is somewhat wasteful to use it for that. Especially since it clears away both physical and mental fatigue and I need it to quickly complete the Daily Quest.'

 

STATUS

[NAME: AKROATÍS SOFÓS ALTAIR ROHAN]

[LEVEL : 1 ]

[RACE : HUMAN ]

[TITLE(S) : PLAYER▾▻ ]

[CLASS : NONE ]

[HEALTH : 121 ]

[MANA : 272 ]

[STRENGTH : 10 ]

[AGILITY : 10 ]

[VITALITY : 11 ]

[INTELLIGENCE : 17 ]

[SENSE : 10 ]

[POINTS : 6 ]

. . .

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