The Portland International Jetport was one of the busiest airports in the state, located two miles west of downtown Portland. While Hazel never took a flight there herself, she had taken a ride there to meet up with a friend who landed at the Jetport.

  So, this would be her second time going to the jetport. But unlike before, Hazel could tell that she was going to be able to see more this time. During her first visit, she only waited near the baggage claim curb, where she was meeting up with her friend. But this time, since this place was going to be where Hazel and Astrid planned to take shelter for a little bit, she might be able to explore the building a little more.

  After a bit more driving, the players finally exited out of the interstate and made their way over to the Jetport. Ahead of them, Hazel and the others saw the front of the jetport building. Over on the left side, they saw the sign that said Portland Internationa Jetport, with the Jetport word being bigger and yellow. If Hazel remembered correctly, that sign would light up once it got dark, but she doubted that was possible now after the System appeared.

  Over to their sides, they saw the parking lots where all the cars were. Instead of being parked like normal, almost all of them were either flipped over, destroyed to bits, or stacked on one another like some Jenga tower. Seeing that, Hazel figured that there were monsters here before Zoe and the others made this place as their base of operations.

  Getting closer to the building, all of the cargo transport vehicles stopped, allowing Hazel and the others to finally get off so they could head inside. Sticking to her little act, Hazel had Astrid assist her in getting out of the vehicle.

  “I forgot to ask this, but where exactly are we?” Hazel asked, acting oblivious.

  “The Portland International Jetport,” John stated.

  Hazel tried to look surprised, even placing her hand over her mouth to display her shock. “You guys chose the jetport as your base of operations?”

  “It was the only place big enough for what we intend to do.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Like we stated before,” Zoe chimed in. “To create a base to gather players and make preparations for the upcoming phase with the System. We need to get as many people as we can for what’s coming.”

  That made sense. While doing it alone would get you far, it would likely be preferable to have a lot of people to assist you. This meant these people were trying to turn the Jetport space into a sort of settlement to house the players that joined their group.

  “I’m assuming it wasn’t easy turning this place into your base?” Hazel asked.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Zoe lightly laughed. “But it was certainly worth it because of what we discovered.”

  “What did you discover exactly?”

  “A village,” John answered.

  Hearing this, Hazel fought back the urge to turn and face the soldier. “You found a village?”

  “Indeed,” Zoe answered. “There were several village houses located in the docking field where your planes take flight.”

  Well, that was quite convenient. But Hazel figured that this was to be expected since their worlds were merged. Much like how Portland and the town of Mossley were fused during the planetary merging, it wasn’t a stretch for a village and a Jetport to endure the same thing.

  Regardless, it seemed that this Jetport was the perfect place to set up their settlement. It would take some time, but if they modified their base a little, it could turn out to be the best settlement in the area.

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  Once everyone was out of the cargo vehicles, the players made their way over to the entrance. Opening the glass doors and going inside, Hazel and Astrid were greeted with the ticket area of the Jetport, where all passengers obtained their tickets for their flights.

  But instead of a busy area with a long line of people waiting to get their tickets, it was completely empty. Not only that but because the electricity was down, there was no lighting except for the outside light from the sun beaming through the glass windows that made up a quarter of a wall. Seeing the empty space and lacking fluorescent lights, Hazel felt a little uncomfortable, getting the impression that she wasn’t supposed to be there. But knew that there was nothing to fear, at least at the moment.

  Moving forward, Hazel and the others soon made it to the escalators. Much like the lights, the moving staircase remained still, making it no different than a regular staircase you would come across anywhere.

  “The second floor is where the majority of our people are located,” Zoe stated.

  “How many people are in your group, if you don’t mind me asking?” Hazel suddenly asked.

  “Including us, I would say around fifty,” Joe answered. “Though, there used to be more, but...we lost them while trying to survive the Tutorial Dungeon.”

  Upon mentioning this, Zoe and the other players looked a bit depressed, and Hazel could tell why. They likely went through a lot when they were trapped in their tutorial dungeon, much like Hazel and Astrid. And because of how dangerous those dungeons were, it wouldn’t be all that shocking if they lost an ally or two during the journey to escape.

  Hazel and Astrid were lucky that they survived as long as they did in theirs. They knew firsthand that surviving in such a hostile environment wasn’t easy. Hell, Hazel nearly died by simply falling into the abyss when she was trapped in her tutorial. It told Hazel that she needed to be careful or one mistake could be the end of her.

  “I understand that using this place would help you greatly, but couldn’t you have used one of the Inns near the Jetport to use as your base or shelter?”

  Near the Jetport were two Inns that people used to take residence in preparations for their flight to save them time and trouble getting there. While the Jetport was big, the Inns should be better in terms of establishing their base.

  Unless...

  “That was John’s initial idea, actually,” Zoe stated. “Sadly, both buildings were destroyed. One of them had a quarter of their structure destroyed from the altered foundation due to the planetary merging, and the other was destroyed by several giant monsters. Needless to say, neither Inn was good for our plans.”

  “Yeah, I can see why...”

  Well, that answered that question. No wonder they decided to use the Jetport rather than the inns. It was the only place intact from the monsters and terraformation.

  Hazel was a bit curious about the village they were talking about. The Jetport property is rather big, so it should have enough space to contain such a settlement. Maybe after they take a tour around this place, she could catch a glimpse of the village herself.

  Though, since she was pretending to be blind, she’d have to come up with some kind of excuse. Either that or ask Astrid to play along and have her get them to guide the pair over there. For now, though, she should focus on the Jetport building.

  Finally making it to the top of the escalator, they were now on the second floor. Looking around with her Astral Eye, Hazel saw a couple of restaurants like Burger King and a pub of sorts. There was even a Starbucks.

  Sadly, Hazel doubted that any of them were functional at the moment. With all the power out, it was also likely that all of the food got spoiled, so there was no point in even checking them out.

  While walking around the second floor, Hazel and Astrid started seeing more players walking around. Most of them were either doing some kind of manual labor, like carrying heavy objects and the like, or simply taking a break on the various seats scattered around them.

  With her Astral Eye, Hazel took a slight glimpse at the status of the players around them. Surprisingly enough, there were only a few that were over level ten and maybe level fifteen, but none of them were past level twenty like Zoe. That told Hazel that, unlike the players she was currently with, the rest were likely just extra backup or support.

  As Hazel continued to scan her surroundings with her floating, invisible, magic eye, she was immediately caught off guard when Zoe called out to her.

  “Does your eyes still hurt, Hazel?”

  “H-huh? A-ah, yes. They do sting a little...” She said while rubbing her blindfold, which was slightly wet from the blood leaking from her eyes.

  “Then we should probably bring you to our healer. She might not be able to fix your blindness, but she should be able to at least heal what’s still damaged and causing that bleeding.”

  A Healer, huh? That meant they planned to bring her to a player with the Cleric class. If the player is anything like Zoe and the others, then she should be around their levels as well. While a cleric isn’t necessarily an offensive class, Hazel felt that Zoe still managed to help them get stronger.

  It looked like they were off to see the Cleric then.