128 Portal Repair

The municipal plaza was filled with numerous stalls made from . It served as the public market to buy and sell things. There's also a trading section for bartering goods.

People shopped around at this time of the day since there was nothing else to do. For the common survivors, night time was extremely dangerous even though the carriers were weakened.

It's becoming a common knowledge to everyone that carriers use energy as a way to move and revive. Some hypothesized that they were gathering energy from the sun while evolving at night. Also, since there's no source of energy when the sun sets, the carriers were forced to fight passively and conserve energy.

The Frontier was the one who released this information to the public.

They are a group of individuals who doesn't want to work for the government or join the small local powers. Although they're weak in terms of strength, their numbers were increasing by the day since both the goverment and people who have powers seemed to not care about the commoners well-being.

Barrels of drums were placed at certain distances around the municipal plaza to light up the surrounding.

Under the dimly lit sky. numerous flashes of light appeared at the Portal Statue.

It was Jun and his group.

Every use of the Portal decreases its durability by 1. It's also the same reason why the information on how to use it hasn't been available to the public.

If they were to publicize the method to use the Portal, with the current population, it would easily destory it.

Jun has been thinking for ways to repair the Portal and this time, he had something to try.

With his earlier experience at the top of the Calvary Hill, he placed his hand on the Portal Statue and gathered energy on his palm.

Nothing happened on the first few seconds, so he naturally increased the energy channeling output. When it reached 10 energy per second, he felt the Portal sucking the energy on his palm into it.

He quickly stopped channeling since he fell dangerously low on energy once again. Experimenting should be good, but he was reminded that he must do it on full energy.

Jun examined the Portal and didn't find anything remarkable. He thought, I should have checked the previous durability before doingit.

Jun sighed and turned to his side. He found Nik staring at him filled with curiosity.

\"Try it. Transfer energy to the Portal.\" said Jun as he stepped back and looked around the plaza. He watched everyone merrily spending the night like they were just on a vacation.

Also, this time he kept the present durability on the back of his mind.

Nik gladly followed his order and channeled energy into the Portal Statue. He thought that he was doing something wrong since there was no reaction from the statue and so he continued channeling his energy.

\"I forgot to tell you that you need a higher output and—\"

As Jun turned back, he was right on time to witness Nik tremble before falling sideways. He quickly reacted and caught him into his arms.

Jun checked his pulse and felt relieved when he realized that he was okay. Though Jun knew that Nik probably fell unconscious due to energy exhaustion, he doesn't fully know what its side-effects could be since there's not enough information about it.

\"He's okay, he just passed out.\" said Jun towards the others, who worriedly looked at them. \"Its funny how you guys are good at energy control but would sometimes forget about your limits.\"

Someone from the squad hurriedly stepped forward and Jun handed Nik to the man.

He turned back towards the Portal and examined its durability which increased by 3 points. There's a lot of possibilities here, for the calculation of reparation, but why take guesses when you can achieve facts.

He ordered one of his men to channel energy into the statue with the right amount of energy output. He told the man to only use 20 of his energy and the transfer was quickly finished within two seconds.

Jun checked again and the Portal was repaired by 2 points.

[Teleport Portal]

[Durability - 351/1000]

So, it's 10 energy for 1 point of durability. That's fine I guess.

A survivor commonly has 100 energy and could regenerate fully within an hour. Even if a person only contributes half of their energy, they could still repair 5 durability points. With the number of people here and at the rate people recovers energy, keeping the Portal at max durability would never be a problem. Unless someone intentionally destroys it or a horde of carriers actually managed to siege the Portal, there was no way that it could be destroyed.

Jun turned to one of his death slave and said, \"Tell the people that we'll publicize how to use the Portal tomorrow morning. Good work everyone, dismiss.\"

After dismissing everyone, he went straight towards the compound. He didn't care whatever they do on their free time.

Jun didn't lower his voice earlier and it resulted for numerous interested people to flock over the masked men. They were repeatedly asked for more information but every last one of them sealed their lips tight since their boss already said that it would be announced tomorrow.

The crowd dispersed and the masked men went on theor seperate ways. As Nik was brought towards the Divine Hand, a nickname given to Sheila's father since he can cure and heal anyone back up as long as they're alive when they reached him.

Bartolome, Nik's guardian angel, knew that Nik was safe and is just unconscious due to energy exhaustion, but he still brought him to the doctor just to make sure.

The others got out of the plaza and roamed around since they couldn't really talk to anyone and might get punished in doing so.

Jun arrived at the mall and hurriedly ran towards the second floor. Bernard tipped him that someone was likely to burst out if he came back a bit later.

Jun looked at the time from the wall clock and it was past six.

As he ran up the escalator, he happened to see Marianne waiting for him at the top. Her arms were in a cross in front of her while glaring at him.

Jun slowed down and his run transitioned into walking. He scratched the back of his hand as he walked.

\"Hello My[1], I'm back.\"

***

After eating dinner, Jun and Marianne strolled around the municipal plaza.

Well, in reality, Jun was dragged around by Marianne as they went window shopping at the night market. Jun didn't really feel bad at being dragged around and was actually happy for taking some leisure time. It somehow made him feel relax every time he was with her.

When Marianne finds something cute, Jun would come in and quickly buys the item. Marianne told him that she could pay for it since she have CP's saved up but Jun insisted that he should the one paying for it. This could be called their actual first date and he should atleast flex a bit.

They enjoyed their time together and when the night got deeper, they finally decided to head back.

Marianne jumped to the bed filled with energy while Jun exhaustedly fell backwards to the bed.

Marianne crawled towards him and kissed his cheeks.

\"I really enjoyed the date. Thank you!\" said Marianne.

\"I'm glad you did.\" replied Jun, then kissed Marianne's forehead.

\"I want to spend everyday like this.\" she said as she slowly wrapped her thin arms around Jun's chest. \"Just being with you makes me happy.\"

\"Me too. You're the best thing that ever happened to me.\"

Jun then placed his hand around her shoulders and pulled her into him which made Marianne bashful.

She then softly whispered, \"You know that my hips are still aching right?\"

Jun smiled sheepishly while staring at her beautiful eyes. \"It won't when you get used to it.\"

Marianne then jokingly slapped Jun's chest.

***

When Nik woke up, he found himself lying on an unknown bed. He looked around and heard someone speak beside him.

\"Ohh, this is interesting. You woke up faster than I thought.\"

Nik then felt something touch his neck and he quickly rolled out of the bed. A sword appeared on his hand and he warily looked around.

He was inside a room with numerous medical tools and supplies. He then focused on the old man in front of him. He had clean-shaven face and has a smile all the time. His hands were calmly raised in the air as he stared at him.

\"Please calm down. I'm a doctor, so I was just checking up on you.\"

\"Why am I here?\"

\"You were brought here by your friend after you fell unconscious due to energy exhaustion. Your friend went outside to take care of some business and will probably back after a few minutes. In the mean time, why don't you sit down, so I can take some look on you.\"

Nik glared at the old man and slowly inched towards the door. When the old man appeared not to take any weird action, Nik stored his sword in his dimensional storage and head outside.

The old man shook his head and sighed. \"Why are all powerful people weird?\"

As Nik got outside, he immediately recognized the area.

The flickering flames on the barrels at the plaza reminded him of where he was.

\"This is the best spot I could get where I could live and protect my tools from looters.\"

Nik turned and said, \"Looters?\" before the old man could answer, Nik shrugged and started walking, he murmurred, \"Nevermind, I'm going.\"

The old man disappointedly shook his head once again.

Nik went into the municipal plaza to go back to the police station. Just as he went inside the municipal building, he saw a squad member walking upstairs towards the second floor. He shrugged and let the matter go.

***

At the public market's dock, under the water...

Numerous carriers gazed towards  moonlight.

[1] Read as Mi = endearment.

call signs? couple things...