30.

Santi eventually ended up taking that nap. As the lethargic afternoon wore on, his eyes grew heavy and he found a shadowy room to close his eyes for a few hours. When he woke up he felt refreshed though dealing with a cotton mouth and a slight headache. He alternated rubbing his temples while sipping on a bottle of water. The dark room was well insulated, the sounds of the late afternoon completely isolated from him.

His new attribute let him know it was exactly four fifty-three in the afternoon. For the first time in days he had a few moments to himself. There was no need to worry about leveling up, no spells to check, monsters to kill, or supplies to gather. For just a few minutes he let himself think about all that had happened that was straying away from what had happened last time.

The largest of these of course being that everyone was here and alive. That most of these people had died in the original timeline wasn’t lost on Santi. He had changed the timeline massively by saving everyone. Akthyr had informed him of The Major Change. The world being upgraded. More resources invested by the System to propagate growth.

Santi had originally planned to do what he had done the last time, just better and save a few more of his friends. Becoming a Wind Mage was what had formed his personality and life originally. Everything he had done had been based around his class and position in the Guild. Now though, would that be enough.

Personal power was great. It allowed one to define oneself rather than have others do it for them. He would have been able to dictate what was happening and to whom. Now though, would it be enough?

That thought just kept rattling around in Santi’s head as he sat there in the dark. He had absolved himself of the responsibility of rescuing his family. Told himself that he couldn't leave this area because he would lose all of the advantages of having home field advantage.

He had lied to himself. Sitting there with the pulsing headache and his growling stomach, he let himself acknowledge what had driven that.

Greed.

Cowardice.

Fear.

He had wanted to grow personally powerful. To be a Champion, or even ascend higher to a Master. Knowing what was in the area and how he could best the challenges around him had kept him rooted here. Afterall, he had mourned his family years ago. The pain of hearing his family’s voices had torn open those wounds, but in his heart he had buried them. His own greed, the greed of personal power, of becoming someone important had kept him here.

He had been a coward, for he feared seeing his family. Of seeing his sisters, mother, and father. To see their faces and know that he could lose them again. It was easier to stand here, by himself and isolate himself from that agony that had once consumed him. Santi felt tears sliding down his face as his shoulders shook. The thoughts kept coming, one after the other. The moment of self-realization crushing him.

Fear of the unknown. Of being unknown. If he had left the campus, he would have risked dying to something he couldn’t plan for. He would have missed the chances that he knew would be available. Fear of seeing them dead. Of mourning not only his family again, but the friends who had never gotten to grow and live.

Santi let himself sink deeper into the realizations of the thoughts of inadequacy. For just a few minutes he allowed himself the luxury of reprimanding himself. Of self-loathing. Then, as his tears dried and the shuddering sobs stopped, he cleaned his face and worked on his breathing.

The stifling air of the room was warm and not soothing in any way, but it helped him bring his emotions back in line to where he was functional. He couldn’t let all those people out there see him like this. They were terrified and looking for leadership. For someone to guide them. He had thrust that onto Tank rather than himself. Tank had decided leadership belonged to the group and Santi couldn’t fault him for that. Afterall, he hadn’t wanted to lead them either and he knew what was going on.

Santi couldn’t tell anyone of what had happened, the geas assured that. People knew there was something off about him, but the magic of the spell kept them from pushing harder on it. He knew and the other regressors knew.

“Better, I can be better,’ Santi pleaded to himself as he grabbed his saber and walked out of the room. Opening the door let in a rush of sounds, people bustling and talking and everything else that came with a bunch of people living in close proximity to each other.

Searching for Tank, Santi took the time to look around the base. The building wasn’t large, just a long hall with a dozen or so classrooms attached to it. There were storage closets and other smaller rooms, but for the most part it was just the main hall with rooms glommed onto it.

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People were packed into every room. The only room that still had its lock on it had a trio of people watching it holding homemade spears. Likely the food or water room where they were keeping the majority of the supplies. Santi ignored it, his own small room had been a supply closet that he had thrown a pack of water into along with some bags of beef jerky and Pop-Tarts.

People looked tired and dirty. Only a few days in and Santi could see the effects of the apocalypse was taking on them. Sallow faces, hunger carved into expressions, grief haunting every look. Blood and dirt-stained clothes. Improvised weapons on every person's belt. It had all of the makings of a war camp.

“I can do better,” Santi whispered to himself as he passed by a pair of children who clutched each other as if the world would fall apart if they let go. The dried blood on their faces and clothes told a story of monstrous origins. The fact they were ignored and left in the middle of the hallway as people were too lost in their own myriad of concerns was just another symptom of the effects of the monsters.

Santi found Tank in the entryway of the building. The doorway was barricaded, they had been using a side door afterall, with a handful of gas lanterns giving light as a group of people poured over local maps. Tank wasn’t in the central position, but rather slightly off to the side. The main person was a middle-aged woman with gray streaking her dark hair. Santi didn’t recognize her but as he got closer he heard the command in her voice as she spoke.

A few of the people looked him over in curiosity before ignoring him to focus back on the maps they were going over. Tank saw him and just tilted his chin in a brief nod before focusing back on what the woman was talking about.

“This warehouse here, it’s a distribution center. If we can get in there we will have plenty of supplies for the future. The question is, do we relocate there?” She said, Santi just caught the end of the conversation.

There were six people in the huddle, including Tank and the speaker. Two others were younger women who looked like the central woman, with an older bald white man, and a racially ambiguous man who looked to be in his thirties. Santi looked down at the map and tried not to pale as he saw where she was pointing at.

The distribution center wasn’t anywhere near downtown where Santi suspected most of the monsters would be. Instead it was near the edge of the city, but he knew that area. It was where another rift was located. Not exactly where the warehouse was, but very close. It would be a terrible idea to tackle the golem rift without having a full raid team closing in at the peak of Intiatie tier. They’d be massacred without more powerful attacks that could hew through the golems' tough defenses and survive the incredibly strong attacks.

“Bad idea. There’s a rift nearby. We’d be pulverized getting there,” Santi cut in before he could stop himself.

“And you are?” The woman looked at him from the papers letting Santi see the deep bags under her dark eyes.

“Santiago, I was the leader of the last supply run and this is my place that I set up.”

“How do you know there’s a rift there?” One of the girls said.

“What do you mean it’s your place?” The older man asked, face puzzled and suspicious.

“I physically can’t tell you, and you just have to take my word for it. I’m the one who fixed this place up and supplied it,” Santi answered both questions as succinctly as possible.

“He’s telling the truth. It’s weird. I feel like I should know, like a memory or something but I just can’t remember what it was. None of us would be alive without him though and he cleared the rift that showed up by our dorms. Without him, I think we’d all be dead,” Tank supported him, a large hand patting Santi on his shoulder.

“What’s a rift?” The main woman said.

“It’s like a portal to a sub-dimension that has a core in the center holding it all stable. It’s protected by a bunch of more powerful monsters, but if you fight and kill them, you can take the core out and the rift will collapse.”

“And we can’t do that at this one?”

“We could. If we were all higher leveled. The one I closed on campus was super weak, all of the monsters were dying of starvation.”

“Ok, so how do we get stronger then?” the second man asked, the first words he had said so far.

“Oh, you haven’t leveled yet?” Santi asked, completely puzzled that the man didn’t know.

“No, none of us have,” the man said, waving his hand at all the people in the room aside from Tank.

“It’s simple. We kill monsters and don’t die. Or we act in a way that works for our class. Tank is a healer, he gets levels for healing people. I’m a mage, I’ll get levels for learning and using magic.”

“We need food and water and more of everything. This warehouse is our best bet for riding this out. Especially if we keep finding more people.”

“Then we need to get stronger. The best way to do that is kill monsters. I humbly suggest we start with the red goblin monster nest that I know is somewhere around here,” Santi pushed his agenda, heart hardening as he decided his course.

He had made mistakes and he would likely make more. In the meantime, he couldn’t shirk responsibility just so he could further his own goals. And he did have a responsibility to humanity. He knew what was coming and he would stand before the upcoming disasters and protect the people of his community as best he could.